Senator wants pay cap for bailed-out execs

Wall Street's looting of the American taxpayers via the government bailout has gone almost unchallenged - until now.

Now - after banking execs used bailout money to give themselves pay bonuses they didn't need to begin with - Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) wants to rein in these greed merchants.

McCaskill called these executives "a bunch of idiots on Wall Street" and introduced a bill to limit the pay of execs of companies that get federal bailout dough. Their pay would be limited to no more than that of the President of this great U.S. and A. nation - currently $400,000 a year.

This proposed law is actually more than generous to the execs. The companies' lowest-paid workers probably don't make $20,000 a year, so $400,000 should be more than enough for top execs (who frankly don't work as hard).

The Wall Street execs may seem to be idiots (as McCaskill put it), but apparently they were just smart enough to know how to game the system and loot hard-working taxpayers. Obviously they got a lot of help from people in high places to get their bailout.

Idiots or not, they're certainly corporate criminals.

Naturally, right-wing former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani defended CEO's who looted the bailout funds to give themselves bonuses. Like anyone gives a shit what he thinks.

(Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/30/executive.pay)

Freedent goes international (Bubble Gum Weekend)

If you ever wanted to hear the "Freedent's the one that took the stick out of gum" jingle in French, this may be your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Freedent - the amazing gum for people with no teeth - must be the smash hit worldwide that it is in the U.S. In other words, not much of a hit at all.

Anyhow, I ridiculed a Freedent ad from the good ol' U.S. and A. once before (though YouPube has since pulled that clip due to feewinghurt). But this ad campaign wasn't limited to the U.S. or to the English language. Now I've discovered a 1987 French-speaking Freedent ad from Canada:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMkixL-lQ7g

Same jingle - only in French!

I'm not fluent in French, but it appears as if the jingle was translated almost verbatim from English. In fact, I think I detected a "oui" in the same place the English-speaking version says "yeah." The only difference is that the opening line seems to say "Freedent the gum" instead of "Freedent's the one."

The words printed on the screen seem to be saying something about Freedent not sticking to false teeth being a registered trademark.

So watch out! If you chew, say, Bazooka or Fruit Stripe, and it doesn't stick to your false teeth, Freedent can sue you!

Commuter Clot canceled

Can't say me didn't try!

I tried attending Commuter Clot (which is what I call the Critical Mass event in Cincinnati) today, but after I arrived on Fountain Square, only one other person showed up. When we realized nobody else was coming, we left, because we knew it was canceled because of the weather.

The event's MySpace page, however, made no mention of this cancellation.

I'm not peeved at Commuter Clot, because waiting there wasn't the difficult part. The hard part was getting to and from the event on a bike. Throughout Bellevue and Newport, here's what it was like: Roads that a bicyclist would otherwise be safe to use were not cleared of snow. Other roads - where the traffic is too heavy to bike - were. However, on these other roads, the sidewalks had not been cleared.

So the only conveyances that weren't covered with tightly packed, bumpy snow and ice were roadways that are too crowded to bike. As a result, on the way home, it took about an hour to walk the bike 4 blocks between Newport and Bellevue.

It's ironic that I discovered this on the way to and from an event designed to encourage better biking amenities.

If I didn't know any better, I'd think the way the roads were treated today was an intentionally classist effort to favor cars over bicyclists (as cyclists are less likely to be able to afford a car).

Hell, who are we kidding? It's classism. No point in living in denial this time (though inevitably someone will).

Bellevue and Newport, after all, have right-wing city governments that in recent years have seldom passed up an opportunity to discriminate against the poor. Bellevue, for instance, has been operating a program to pay apartment building owners to convert their buildings into single-family houses. Why? Because some city officials hate people who can only afford an apartment.

If a city is willing to actively attempt to drive poor residents out in this manner, why would we be surprised if the city clears roads used only by cars but lets ice pile up on roads that bikes use?

(More info: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=156267820)

Who are the programs in your neighborhood?

Well, who are they?

You know, the programs that you meet each day.

I'm concerned about something that might be going on in my very neighborhood right now. I received some information about this program before I went to bed last night, and after the program made a bunch of noise overnight that kept the neighborhood awake, I want answers.

Not far from my digs is a mysterious building that I've wondered about for years. Now I know that it houses some type of treatment program.

Is it abusive? Is it a cult?

Well, I've been directed to their website, and it seems to have an "our way or the highway" attitude. Like a cult, nobody else's way seems to be acceptable.

At minimum, we now know there are problems within the program, and I want to know whether anyone on the program's board knows what's going on. Either way, I will not tolerate abusive programs in my neighborhood. When a program is in my town, it has to cooperate - or I will make things very hard on it.

Very soon, I hope to be able to write a report here about an apparently unique law Kentucky has regarding the forced treatment of adults. I suspect this law generates business for this program, and it's time we get to the bottom of it.

Archdiocese faces federal probe

With a new administration in Washington, it now appears that Catholic Church officials' ongoing cover-up of sex abuse cases is starting to unravel even more.

Let me be frank: America's right-wing rulers - particularly the Bush regime - have not been serious enough about going after the Church's serial mishandling of the scandal. There was a policy for years in Toledo of not prosecuting sex abuse cases by priests, and I'm sure that's not the only American locale that had this policy. Parts of northern Kentucky have been little better.

But now there's finally a federal investigation. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is now the topic of a grand jury probe into its mishandling of child molestation by priests.

In 2007, the archdiocese reached a $660,000,000 settlement with over 500 alleged clergy abuse victims.

It'll be interesting - and maddening - to see what defense the archdiocese might come up with in this case. In Kentucky, our local diocese hid behind corporate law to try to avoid paying a settlement. Church officials have also tried abusing sovereign immunity on the grounds that Vatican City is its own country.

Bush's Justice Department intervened on behalf of officials in other cases that it didn't want facing lawsuits. But with a new administration, the cover-up in the Catholic Church might be unwinding.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/news/national/story/L-A-cardinal-says-hes-mystified-by-federal-probe/FJAEiThO0UWJsHgfHW3Qfw.cspx)

A drywall scandal that stinks

The right-wing noise machine isn't shy about baselessly attacking my patriotism or that of other dissidents (because we didn't support Bush's illegal Iraq War). Yet our right-wing overlords don't even care enough about ol' red, white, and blue to encourage firms to buy American.

They'd rather allow cheap, docile labor to be exploited abroad than protect you, the American worker.

Lately, folks who have moved into new homes in Florida and Virginia have been driven out of their new digs by the insufferable sulfur stench of the homes' drywall. It turns out the homebuilders didn't use American-made drywall - but Chinese-made drywall.

This is a serious concern, because China has no equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency or other agencies that might have oversight over what goes into products. (America barely had an EPA under Bush, but that's in the past now.) Thus, China exercises little control over the environmental safety of items like drywall.

So this isn't just a problem of odors, personal inconvenience, or the blight caused by neighborhoods having to be abandoned because of the stink. This is also a potential health hazard.

The Chinese-made drywall contains heavy does of sulfur, which stinks of rotten egg farts. Sulfur gas corrodes metal, and residents have noticed that jewelry, air conditioner coils, and other metal objects have become tarnished. As for the health effects, residents have experienced respiratory problems that suddenly clear up when they leave their houses.

Meanwhile, brand-new houses sit ruined and empty because of the sulfur-laced drywall - never to be inhabited again.

Are the free trade ideologues happy now?

(Source: http://blogs.tampabay.com/venture/2009/01/the-state-has-r.html)

Utilities threatening not to restore power for weeks

It's another record!


No, I don't mean the good kind of record.

After the September blackout set a record for the largest electricity outage in Kentucky's history, state regulators say that record has already been shattered this week. For the record to be broken twice within a few months means either the weather has gotten more extreme or our power infrastructure has become even more fragile.

I think it's both.

And now, particularly in western Kentucky, utility companies say it will be at least mid-February before power is restored! By then it will have been 3 weeks since the power was lost.

The blackout has also caused water shortages, forcing some residents to haul dirty water out of creeks to drink.

What power companies rule the roost in western Kentucky, and who allows this situation? I know Kentucky has become a rubber-stamp state with regard to utility deregulation and rate hikes, but you'd think with people paying more for electricity, it wouldn't take 3 weeks to restore power.

And let's not kid ourselves: If it takes that long to restore electricity after a storm like this, the electric company isn't delivering the services it gets paid to deliver. Period. (This is not the worst blizzard Kentucky has seen.) And we need to hold utility companies' feet to the fire much as Massachusetts residents are doing to Unitil.

Too many Americans have been conditioned into holding utilities blameless no matter how unreliable their service is - for the media has rarely balked at amplifying the perspective of major corporations like power companies. Well, the buck stops here. I know corporate bullshit when I see it.

At very minimum, regulators should not allow utilities to increase rates again to cover business "lost" by the latest outage - as what happened after the Blackout of '08. But you know it's coming.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090130/ap_on_re_us/winter_storm_outages_4)

PFC report posted!

Now that the KHK/PFC cult has been hounded out of both Cincinnati and Detroit, a new televised report about the long-awaited closures from WCPO-TV in Cincinnati has been posted online:

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local/story/I-Team-Drug-Center-Closes/eYjOAhA4SkGMq0Lhbfd8rg.cspx

I usually don't rely heavily on established news organizations like (brrrrring!) Channel 9, but this is one of few regular news outlets that hasn't completely whitewashed the cult's abuse.

4 Bush anti-worker decrees erased

The past 9 days haven't been happy ones in conservaland.

Now President Obama has just announced plans to reverse 4 more of Bush's illegal diktats - this time regarding workplace rules.

One of them is Bush's fiat that directed unionized companies to post signs informing workers that they could decertify the union. Not only was this order illegal on the grounds that Bush had no authority to issue it. It was also patently unfair, as nonunion shops weren't required to post signs telling workers they could unionize.

But don't think Obama's work is done just because he's spent 9 days reversing some of Bush's edicts. He also has the Contract With America mess to clean up, and when he's done with that, he has to fix what Mad Dog and Rappin' Ronnie broke (because Clinton didn't fix it).

I know I sound like a parent lecturing a teenager, but we can't clean up 8 years of vomit only to let the previous 20 years continue to stink up the joint.

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jEtOI8ay_-XoZrKX9qFZBXsDQb7wD9611PHG0)

2 more political prisoners?

The War on Drugs appears to have taken 2 more innocent Americans prisoner.

This time it's in Washington state, where word has it that 2 middle-aged women have just received a year-long suspended jail sentence and fined heavily for mere possession of 3 packs of over-the-counter sinus medicine.

For the fillionth time, since when is mere possession of an over-the-counter drug illegal? It can't be, because it's over-the-counter. What's next? Throwing drugstores in jail because they have more than 3 packs of Sudafed in stock?

Were this in northern Kentucky and not southern Washington, I think a march outside the courthouse would have been in order. It is anyway, but it's too far for me.

The drug warriors need to just give up the fight or get out of the country. In their hearts, they're enemies of the American people.

PFC is R.I.P. in Detroit!

They just said it on Channel 9!

The Kids Helping Kids cult in Cincinnati that closed following protests and bad publicity was part of Pathway Family Center, which had 3 other facilities in other markets. They were all part of the same program and used the same failed methods.

Now WCPO-TV in Cincinnati has just reported that PFC's Detroit area facility has just closed today!

In Michigan, PFC is now R.I.P.!

However, the Channel 9 report also indicated that teens confined at the Cincinnati and Detroit facilities are now being shuffled off to the Indianapolis and northwestern Indiana centers - against the wishes of parents.

Nonetheless, PFC now has only half as much active space and has been weakened significantly. PFC blames the economy instead of negative publicity for the closures, but the American economy has been less than spectacular for decades. So of course it was the bad publicity.

In other words, PFC lied again. Surprise, surprise.

It also appears as if PFC still owns the Cincinnati building, so you know they're going to try to return in this market. If they do, I will be back on their case like stink on shit.

Blagojevich removed from office

You heard it here first: Illinois lawmakers have voted unanimously to remove Rod Blagojevich from office.

So he's gone.

This is what should have happened to Bush too, but it's a little late for that now, thanks to the DLC's nonstop dodging.

Commuter Clot still on tomorrow?

With Cincinnati under a weather emergency through tomorrow, I almost opted to ditch Critical Mass - which I lovingly refer to by its former name, Commuter Clot.

But I haven't heard that Commuter Clot is canceled. And after the electricity went out again today, I'm in a pumped-up mood like I should be!

So I'm probably going to take the Peace Bike down to Fountain Square tomorrow afternoon - snow or shine. To quote Channel 12's slogan of the early '90s: Just you watch. Odds are, I'm doing it!

See ya at 5th & Vine!

Ohio schools going corporatist?

These days, to say any American school system is going corporatist would be nearly redundant: American schools are run the way they're run precisely to meet the draconian demands of the gloBULL economy - not our young people's needs.

For 25 years, American schools have tried to outdo each other in the "standards" race - which is NewSpeak for molding our young into cheap, docile labor. Under capitalist education, their needs be damned.

This foul trend is being highlighted once again, this time in Ohio.

Gov. Ted Strickland's State of the State address demanded adding yet another 20 days to the school year, for a grand total of 200 - a figure exceeded only in some of the world's most oppressive dictatorships.

Nice to know the Buckeye State is taking cues from right-wing overseas regimes, but that just underscores the morass the "standards" race has dragged America into.

Children can't just be in school 100% of the time like the global greed merchants want. It's a truism that kids need time outside of school - whether it's for family, leisure, or community activities they might benefit from. With quality curricula, a 150-day school year should be more than sufficient.

The Republicans have been known for ideas like this since even before Democrats like Strickland started buckling. Nonetheless, this is the perfect example of the brand of corporate-backed ideas that are going to end up costing the Democrats their newfound political advantage.

It's also true that efforts like this are encouraged by unlawful federal ukases like Bush's No Child Left Behind law. Hopefully repealing No Child Left will be the next major action of the Obama administration (and not just because of this story).

(Source: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090129/NEWS0108/901300301)

Unitil blasted at hearing

Unitil, a New Hampshire-based utility monopoly, is already the target of lawsuits over its failure to restore electricity in a timely manner after a blackout last month.

Now Unitil's shoddy service is the topic of public hearings - at which Unitil's feet have finally been held to the fire.

This is what public hearings around Cincinnati ought to sound like after the repeated blackouts that result every time someone sneezes too loudly - especially after Duke Energy made customers pay for lost business when it didn't restore power in time. In Fitchburg, Massachusetts, angry citizens and local officials urged the state's Department of Public Utilities to take action against Unitil. A Democratic legislator was met with applause when he told regulators, "You folks must bring the regulatory hammer down on this company."

Like Duke, Unitil wants customers to pay for its own slow response to the outage, via increased rates. Also like Duke, Unitil already charges exorbitant rates. As with Duke, Unitil also enjoys rubber-stamp rate increases.

Ah, yes. Paying more for less reliable service. It's a BushAmerica hallmark.

At the hearing, Massachusetts regulators were asked to award local electric service to a different company.

I can't speak for New Hampshire and Massachusetts, but I know Kentucky and Ohio need to bring the hammer down on Duke pronto. Because Duke Energy is a corporation, it has no constitutional rights, so the state can start seizing Duke's assets this very minute if it chooses.

(Source: http://www.telegram.com/article/20090128/NEWS/901280504/1116)

Rightists throw fit against "buy American" rules

Modern American conservatives like to portray themselves as superpatriots who have a monopoly on defending good ol' red, white, and blue.

But this is a Big Lie. They'd rather buy from right-wing dictatorships that allow exploitation of cheap labor than protect the American worker.

The House version of the stimulus package being hammered out by Congress contains a provision that would largely bar foreign steel and iron from infrastructure projects. The Senate version goes further and would require that almost all stimulus projects use only American-made products.

That's what the stimulus is all about. Stimulating the American economy. Not padding the coffers of corporate overlords who exploit docile labor.

These proposed "buy American" rules are sending conservatives into screeching shitfits.

The Washington Post reports that opponents of these rules, which include "some of the biggest blue-chip names in American industry", consider the rules to be "a declaration of war against free trade."

All together now: One, two, three. Aaaaaaaaaawwwww!!! Did those big meanies in Washington keep the poor widdle corporations from Making more Money?

Big Business's global greed merchants are poor students of history. They claim "buy American" rules of the 1930s caused the Great Depression. Which is odd, considering I was always taught that the Depression began in the 1920s.

Those "buy American" rules helped lift America out of the Depression. And I'd bet that the new proposed rules will ease the chronic recession that's plagued America for the past quarter-century.

What good would the stimulus be if it doesn't even protect American jobs?

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/28/AR2009012804002.html)

Blackout of '09???

It's happening again, folks.

Much like in last September's dry wind, in which electricity was knocked out in many neighborhoods for over a week, parts of the Cincinnati metropolitan region are now facing the same putrid roo gas all over again.

All because it snowed (like it does every winter), and our local electric infrastructure is so frail that it's incapable of handling such natural disasters as snow.

The power just went out here, even though no more snow has fallen in days. I'm not sure this had anything to do with weather though, because the power goes out here even during fine weather.

All this courtesy of the local utility monopoly that increased its rates to pay for last year's blackout that it wouldn't fix in time. And I will wager that they're going to demand another rate hike after the current blackout - which the power company now says won't be resolved until at least this weekend.

I want to see what excuses the corporatists come up with to defend the power company this time.

Methinks its time for local and state governments to take over the power company.

Obama signs fair pay law!

Let's hear it for the new administration, and let's hope the next 4 years are (by some miracle) like the past 9 days.

Today, President Obama signed his first bill passed by Congress into law. This new law restores the right to sue over pay discrimination - a right that had been robbed by a spurious Supreme Court ruling in 2007. (The Supreme Court had overturned decades of legal precedent.)

Meanwhile, Republican heads are exploding, as scarce neurons rub together to try to grasp why a Federalist Society-inspired court ruling wasn't allowed to remain in force forever. It's because you don't get to make the rules anymore, Repubs. Cope.

(Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50S4S320090129)

Bush mismanagement may reduce mail to 5 days a week

Gee, thanks a heap, Katherine Harris.

If you pay more and more for a service, you at least have a right to expect it to perform better. But BushAmerica was a Bizarro World where the exact opposite happened.

Now - thanks to 8 years of Bush's mismanagement - the Postal Service is running such a deep deficit that it's now considering delivering mail only 5 days a week.

How can it run a larger deficit when we've been paying exponentially more for postage? One doesn't have to look too far to see why: The Postal Service keeps lowering the price to send junk mail, which slows down the entire system. For years, junk mail has been the biggest burden to the Postal Service - and the most costly for average households, as it gets subsidized more and more by skyrocketing stamp prices.

Junk mail is one of America's costliest forms of corporate welfare outside the bailout debacle.

Not only do stamps cost more. Public mailboxes have been dwindling in number, post office hours have been cut, and even home mail pickup has been slashed. Only under the type of mismanagement that's almost synonymous with modern American conservatism can fewer services and higher prices actually be followed by a bigger deficit.

The Postal Service has now asked Congress to abolish the law that requires 6-day mail delivery. Before Congress bites, it ought to pass a law requiring the Postal Service to make junk mail pay its own damn way instead of having us subsidize it.

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/01/28/national/w115921S52.DTL)

Private schools to get stimulus money?

Few would doubt that an economic stimulus is sorely needed. Inevitably, however, a small percentage of stimulus expenditures are going to end up being questionable.

Abusive teen "rehab" cults and confinement facilities are sure to beg for some of this money, which is why we need to keep an eye out to make sure they get none.

I have another concern in addition to this though: Private religious schools are also demanding a share of stimulus dough. In Cincinnati, private schools are actively urging students, parents, and alumni to lobby Congress for stimulus funds. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is encouraging efforts like this nationwide.

Unfortunately, constitutional law seems to be getting the short end of the twig. (Surprise, surprise.) Separation of church and state is one of the central doctrines of our constitutional system. It's a sad day when the Constitution is forced to take a back seat to a school's demands.

For another thing, public schools and other functions need this money. Most of the private schools I've had dealings with were swimming in cash (as I've had to mention repeatedly lately) - and they already get plenty of government aid (especially in voucher states like Ohio). I don't feel as if they need another penny of my hard-earned money.

Don't be surprised if some congresscritter slips a giveaway to private religious schools into the stimulus package. Keep an eye out in case they do.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story/Elder-High-Leads-Lobbying-Effort-For-Stimulus/gY3cNEQEiUuV2YilWzFxjg.cspx)

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Brent Warr!

Usually I don't like having more than one Conservative Fool Of The Day entry in the same day, but I know you're in the mood for yet another game of "guess the party affiliation."

Meet Brent Warr, mayor of Gulfport, Mississippi.

The mayor and his wife Laura are now the subject of a 16-count federal indictment over alleged fraud involving Hurricane Katrina.

If convicted, the Warrs each face up to 210 years in prison and $4,000,000 in fines. They are accused of filing a false claim for disaster assistance, lying to FEMA, stealing government funds, and committing wire and mail fraud.

Articles leave out an important detail about Mayor Warr: his party affiliation. If Warr was a Democrat - or, heaven forfend, a Green - the media wouldn't hesitate to make an issue of it. But locals are on the ball, and they unearthed the fact that Brent Warr is a Republican.

The Bush regime kept insisting folks should blame local politicians - not the federal government - for things that went wrong during the hurricane. This time we will.

(Source: http://www.sunherald.com/pageone/story/1093278.html)

Credit card racket ratchets up

Probably the biggest consumer scam going on in America right now is credit ratings.

Financial firms worship credit ratings much like the airline industry does the no-fly list. And it's wrapped in just as much secrecy. While firms conspire to keep credit scores on you, you can't even find out what your credit score is. You're supposed to be able to get one free credit report a year from each of 3 organizations - but I've tried getting my report, and they won't send it.

So that's another lie on their part.

This fraud is nothing short of organized crime - in other words, racketeering.

But, little by little, it just gets worse and worse.

Now credit card companies are profiling customers based not on what the customers do but on what shoppers at the same stores do. Companies lower customers' credit lines - which in turn lowers their credit scores.

Upon slashing by more than half the credit line of a customer who had an excellent credit rating, American Express sent him a letter saying, "Other customers who have used their card at establishments where you recently shopped have a poor repayment history with American Express."

So they're saying it's this customer's fault?

As you're reading this, I'm sure you're demanding a law against this practice. But I'm not certain there aren't already laws like this. Now that Bush is gone and laws are no longer just "damn pieces of paper" (as Bush would say), we need to see if there is such a law - and enforce it. If there is no law, we need to make one.

(Incidentally, American Express got federal bailout money.)

Also, the Federal Trade Commission alleged that Compucredit, a third party credit card issuer, reduced customers' credit scores if they used their cards for services like marriage counseling or retreading their tires. Compucredit evidently believed that these services were a sign that the customer was approaching financial ruin.

As for the man whose credit line was cut because of the stores where he shopped, he now has a news blog exposing the credit card industry's fraudulent ways. It's at:

http://www.newcreditrules.com/

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3711072)

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Antonia Novello!

Antonia Novello was Surgeon General under Mad Dog Bush and later headed the state of New York's health department under right-wing Gov. George Pataki.

As Surgeon General, Novello was known for the type of social engineering diktats you'd expect from someone who was appointed by a member of the Bush royal family. And now she's under a criminal investigation for her reign in New York.

A new report by the New York Inspector General's office says Novello routinely abused her staffers. The report referred her to the Albany area DA for felony charges of defrauding the government and offering a false instrument for filing.

The report says Novello forced employees to work overtime on personal errands such as picking up her groceries, watering her houseplants, and assisting her during shopping trips at swanky Saks Fifth Avenue. This cost New York taxpayers almost $50,000.

Novello also allegedly forced a health department security guard to use his teenage son as unpaid labor to rearrange heavy furniture. The report also says Novello made a publicly funded health agency spend $15,000 on an oil painting of herself. Her drivers also claim she yelled at them frequently.

The report also charges that Novello ordered another guard to use his own car to take her on a sightseeing trip.

The right-wing feeling of entitlement is once again on display for the whole wide world to ogle (beep), isn't it?

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/nyregion/27novello.html)

Oscar versus the airport ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Every so often, the cast of 'Sesame Street' used to go on a fact-finding mission!

In 1978, a series of episodes dealt with residents of our favorite TV alley going on a trip to Hawaii. Although this was before the days of no-fly lists, rubber-stamp airline deregulation, frequent outrageous delays, and Bush's fiat about shampoo bottles, our friend Oscar the Grouch was already highly suspicious of air travel.

The ol' Osk loved trash so much that when he went out in public, he often wore his garbage can like a barrel - stowing much rubbish safely therein. Not only did this restrict his movement so much that it almost made the 'Sesame Street' kick-ass crew miss their flight. It also created an uproarious confrontation with the metal detector:



In that clip, we see Oscar in aviator gear trying to get his trash can through the metal detector. Oscar's garbage can has been said to be like Snoopy's doghouse in that it has considerably more space inside than it might appear from the outside. This episode proves it.

But the ol' Osk starts enjoying the inspection. At about 4:10 into the clip, you can tell he wants the inspector to frisk him.

Oddly, the metal detector detected all of Oscar's trash, but it didn't seem to detect his trash can. (I assume he's still wearing his can when he successfully passes through, though he is only shown from the neck up.)

Note also that Bob is allowed to bring a canister of tear gas aboard, and Mr. Hooper brings a small razor blade.

If the 'Sesame Street' gang put on a scene like this today, the TSA would be waterboarding them!

I was in kindergarten in the late '70s, and we went on a field trip to Cincinnati's main airport where they had a similar detector. My classmates and I kept throwing each other's thermoses through the detector, and we kept placing each other's belongings on the luggage carousel and losing them.

'Twas kinda neat!

Bank of America uses bailout money to fight workers

Back in October, Bank of America looted the taxpayers to the tune of $25,000,000,000 in federal bailout dough.

Three days later, Wank of America promptly hosted a conference call with right-wing activists and business "leaders" to plot against pro-labor efforts. The call also included a representative from AIG - which also got bailout money - and attempted to raise money to give to Republican political candidates and to fight against the much-needed Employee Free Choice Act. The EFCA is a long-awaited bill that would make it easier for workers to organize, and conservatives have fought against it tooth and nail.

If Wank of America has enough money to give to right-wing candidates and fight against pro-labor legislation, it doesn't need a dime in bailout money.

The conference call was frenzied and ridiculous. During the call, Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus cried that the EFCA would be "the demise of a civilization." Also present was anti-labor propagandist Rick Berman.

All this on the taxpayers' dime.

The government needs to take back the bailout money Bank of America got.

(Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/27/bank-of-america-hosted-an_n_161248.html)

Draft law tossed

Unbeknownst to most who haven't been on the receiving end of it, the Reagan regime passed a law in 1985 that barred men who failed to register for the draft from most federal employment.

Men affected by this law faced a lifetime ban from government jobs - even though draft eligibility ends at age 26.

Although Bush dodged the draft himself, the Bush regime enforced this law with a vengeance. Enforcement was so zealous that a man who was almost 38 lost his job when it was discovered that he failed to register for the draft 20 years earlier. This despite the fact that he had worked at the same agency for 17 years.

When another government agency offered him a job, that offer was withdrawn when it discovered he hadn't registered.

Furthermore, the man didn't even know he had to register back when he was 18!

The government spends its time investigating employees to make sure they registered with Selective Service 20 years earlier?

This might not be going on any longer though. Now a federal judge has thrown out this law because it violated constitutional safeguards against Congress punishing folks without a trial.

Now the next step is restoring jobs and giving back pay to those who lost their livelihoods under this law. This law sure turned out to be a costly endeavor, didn't it?

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/01/27/national/a074118S31.DTL)

Elderly man dies after electric cut off

Banks and teen "rehab" cults get free money from the government just for asking for it, but a man who worked hard his whole life didn't even have enough money to keep from freezing to death.

In Bay City, Michigan, a 93-year-old man died from the cold after the municipal utility company limited his electric use because he couldn't pay all his bills.

According to the examiner who did the autopsy, the man suffered "a slow, painful death."

The utility had placed a limiter on the man's home to curtail his power use. The limiter blows if you use too much power, and electricity is not restored until the limiter is reset.

Although this was a public utility, think how dangerous it is for any utility to have this ability. About 15 years ago, there was a similar death when a private utility in another locale cut off electricity during record cold weather.

Maybe there ought to be a law that says utilities can't cut off power once the weather gets too cold.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090126/ap_on_re_us/frozen_indoors)

Bush regime intervened to scuttle child trafficking suit

I get the feeling that (as with Reagan) we're going to be hearing about new Bush scandals for years after the end of his reign.

With the discovery that George Mitchell, who serves as President Obama's Middle East envoy, headed a law firm that defended Dubai's ruler in a child trafficking suit, damning facts about the Bush regime seem to lurk beyond the radar.

Kidnapping and trafficking children to use as jockeys in camel races has become an international scandal. A while back, a lawsuit accused Dubai's Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum and another official of using boys kidnapped from other countries in camel races.

Mitchell chaired DLA Piper, which represented the sheikh. Mitchell did not personally represent or lobby for the defendant, but he was aware of the case.

And we don't know whether the sheikh had any involvement in child trafficking, because the suit was tossed out. Why? Because Bush's so-called Justice Department said it would intervene on his behalf and argue that he was immune from being sued because he was a foreign leader.

In other words, instead of trying to get to the bottom of a serious child trafficking case, the Justice Department was helping a foreign ruler avoid a lawsuit.

Bush trotted out "head of state immunity" as a rationale for intervening, but there's no legal basis in a lawsuit like this for making a foreign leader immune.

Child trafficking for camel races is a serious human rights matter. It saddens me when I read about how widespread it has been in this decade. And it angers me that the Bush regime would do everything it could to gut efforts to fight it. I wonder if there's a lot more going on here than it appears.

I think some individuals in very high places were about to be exposed, and Bush had to make sure that didn't happen.

(Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aa7hdtvtfYxc&refer=home)

Citigroup's plane problems

After Citigroup got bajillions of simoleons in bailout dough, the financial services giant promptly planned to spend $50,000,000 of this money on its own private jet to add to its bloated fleet.

Shittypoop's new luxury aircraft was to feature leather seats, posh sofas, and a customizable entertainment center.

Talk about an entitlement culture, huh?

Chrysler and General Motors got a much smaller bailout than Shittypoop did, and they were told they had to give up their corporate jets (although Chrysler didn't even own one). But the bailout to Citigroup and other financial firms had no such strings attached.

Citigroup's jet isn't even built in America, so it won't help the American economy one iota.

Maybe the government should have just nationalized the damn bank instead of allowing this fleecing.

Say, I'd like to fly to Pittsburgh or Atlanta or wherever the next Roads Scholar meet is. Can I use Shittypoop's new jet? I paid for it with my tax dollars, so why not?

But the Obama administration didn't look kindly upon Citigroup's plane purchase. At all. So now Shittypoop has scuttled its plan to buy the elegant jet.

Of course, this still doesn't resolve Citigroup's squandering of hundreds of millions of dollars on stadium naming rights.

(Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20090126/NEWS15/90126063/Levin+livid+over+Citigroup+s+reported+purchase+of+$50-million+private+jet)

GOP accused of shitting their pants

If there's one place in America where the majority does not rule, it's the United States Senate.

Even though the Democrats hold a clear majority, Republicans can block presidential appointments almost on a whim. And the Democrats let 'em do it, naturally.

An anonymous Republican has blocked Labor Secretary nominee Hilda Solis's confirmation because of her support for organized labor. Now the GOP is also holding up the confirmation of Attorney General nominee Eric Holder.

You can say what you want about Holder's nomination, but he reportedly uttered a classic line about Republican obstructionism. Holder reportedly told Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee, "You have soiled the Justice Department, you have soiled the good name of this committee, and from the way many of you are squirming, I also believe you have soiled more than just your own reputations."

Hey, I had no idea "Diaper Dave" Vitter was on the Judiciary Committee!

When people say the Republicans stink, I guess they mean it literally.

Medicaid privatization falls on its face

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (pictured here) has a reputation for turning everything he touches into shit, and this scandal is no exception.

In 2006, Daniels signed a 10-year contract worth over $1,000,000,000 with private companies led by IBM to take over the task of determining eligibility for public benefits programs. These include programs like Medicaid and food stamps that serve the poor.

Almost immediately after Disaster Daniels inked this deal, these programs crumbled beyond recognition. In most counties, Medicaid applicants who previously would have had a qualified caseworker to review their case now have to use an automated phone number that shuffles their case among staffers who are otherwise unfamiliar with the applicant.

As a result, qualified Medicaid applicants get rejected. In at least one instance, this occurred after the private contractors lost all the applicant's paperwork - and blamed the applicant.

Under the new system, Indiana also now has one of the worst rates in the country for improperly denying food stamp applicants. While Indiana still provides emergency food assistance in a timely manner 62% of the time in counties that haven't yet switched over to the new privatized system, the rate is only 44% in the privatized counties.

Legislators are now demanding answers. But Disaster Daniels isn't known for answers but for excuses.

(Source: http://www.indystar.com/article/20090126/OPINION12/901260321/1002/OPINION)

I get mail...wait, actually I don't

...because it gets stolen!

The rise of militant conservatism has meant paying more for less reliable services. It's called less accountability. Under a 2006 Republican law, the Postal Service no longer even has to prove itself before increasing the cost of a stamp. Now the stamp price just goes up automatically each year.

While postal rates increase, the mail becomes less reliable.

I've had problems for years with people stealing my mail (as well as packages sent via companies like UPS and FedEx). This isn't the fault of the Postal Service per se, but the Postal Service has been less reliable at dealing with it.

Around 2000, I filed a formal complaint with the Postal Service about the thefts. I received a letter indicating in a very firm tone that postal inspectors took the thefts very seriously and would investigate pronto. They indicated that they were opening a file on these crimes in an attempt to get to the bottom of it. I was aware of the challenges of catching the culprit, but at least I had some assurance it was being investigated.

In 2006, I was victimized by more mail thefts. I know who stole my mail this time, because I caught her almost red-handed. I made another formal complaint with the Postal Service. This time, however, I got no reply at all, and there's no indication that any investigation was ever launched. In fact, the perp is still out there, because I saw her in her truck just this past Thursday.

This month, I ordered an inexpensive computer mouse (because my old one kept giving out). When it failed to arrive after a week, I visited the Postal Service's website and discovered it had been delivered.

Because it was clear this package had been stolen after it was delivered, I complained again.

This time, I got a form e-mail from the Postal Service saying that its postal inspection division "gathers data on mail-related crime" to "possibly prevent other people from being victimized."

In other words, it appears that all the Postal Service does now is count how many thefts there are in the area in the hopes that this will somehow stop future crimes. Judging by this e-mail, it no longer investigates thefts at all.

(Amazon sent me another mouse to replace the one that was stolen, but I intercepted it before it could be swiped as well.)

Stamps cost twice as much as 20 years ago just for this???

The Republicans insist they're the party of accountability, but this is almost as bad as their EdChoice scam that preys on poor families and throws money at private schools that don't perform as well as public schools. How is this even conservative? It's right-wing, but it's not conservative by any other definition of the term.

Every time we mail a letter, it subsidizes junk mail (which costs far less for the sender to send). One of the things the new administration needs to seriously look at is making junk mail pay its own way. The mismanagement can't continue.

Change may put the wi in Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the great online innovations of recent years. The online encyclopedia lets you - yes, you - edit entries.

But this concept has been slowly chiseled away at by domineering volunteer admins who instantly revert any edit they disagree with. I'll let you guess what political affiliation many of these admins are. Here's a hint: They ain't exactly leftists.

I'm certain this is a deliberate effort by right-wing operatives to turn Wikipedia into another revisionist retelling of The World According To Conservatives. Not a shadow of a doubt about it.

Now, after Wikipedia was hit by yet another campaign of right-wing misinformation, what's Wikipedia's response?

Welp, now Wikipedia is proposing giving these rogue admins even more power!

Under this proposal, only "trusted users" would see their edits appear immediately. Everyone else would have their edits vetted by the volunteer admins - many of whom helped create the crisis that this proposal is supposed to solve.

Doesn't this defeat the whole purpose of Wikipedia? Wikipedia exists for the public to edit - not for right-wing elites to censor information. If I wanted a filtered right-wing resource, I'd just turn on almost any TV talk show these days.

Wikipedia head honchos say a poll shows that 60% of the website's users favor such a change. But where was the poll? The poll sure as shit wasn't anywhere I could see it.

What Wikipedia ought to do is curtail the power of these volunteer admins - not expand it. Wikipedia was much more accurate and detailed several years ago before the right-wing intelligentsia learned it could infiltrate it. The last thing Wikipedia needs is to let the infiltrators win.

(Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/26/tech/cnettechnews/main4753223.shtml)

ADHD drugs found to cause hallucinations

I learned years ago that if you want to get hounded off the supposedly public Internet and have your personal life exposed, criticizing ADHD drugs is a surefire way to get the ball rolling. The Internet has a powerful contingent that won't tolerate any negative information about these toxins - no matter how many studies you cite.

Now yet another study proves that ADHD drugs cause hallucinations in children and teenagers - reinforcing earlier data that was almost completely ignored by the media. These poisons cause hallucinations even when taken as directed, according to FDA researchers. Often, children hallucinated that bugs, snakes, and worms were crawling on them.

Among the drugs covered by the study are Focalin XR, Adderall XR, Daytrana, Concerta, Strattera, Metadate CD, and the old warhorse Ritalin.

How much coverage do you expect this study to get after today? The media doesn't like keeping stories like this in the spotlight, so hang on to it.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090126/hl_nm/us_adhd_drugs)

Yet another Bush power grab reversed!

I was afraid that after Obama reappointed Robert Gates, he was just going to be a third term of Clinton, but Obama's first week in office has been great!

President Obama has already reversed several of Bush's illegal power grabs on homeland security, and now he's on his way to restoring rules for Big Business that Bush gutted.

Tomorrow, Obama is scheduled to allow the states to set tougher car emissions and fuel efficiency standards. Bush - who apparently thought of himself as an emperor rather than as a leader of a republic - had spitefully robbed the states of this constitutional power.

Obama is also instituting fuel efficiency regulations to comply with a 2007 law Bush ignored.

Will things continue at this rate? I wish I could say so, but with the DLC around, I'd probably just be setting myself up for a '90s-style disappointment.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/us/politics/26calif.html)

The very first Gum Fighter ad? (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Have we finally found the very first TV commercial for Hubba Bubba bubble gum ever to hit the airwaves?

Aaaww! I think we did!

It's from 1979, and you can tell because the Gum Fighter's sideburns were bigger. However, this appears to be the British version of the ad rather than the American version. (I've described before how the jingle in the British version was sung in a British accent.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE1re4uNpN0

"There's gonna be a gum fight!" laughs the Fighter's trusty sidekick.

As was often the case with these ads, the Gum Fighter blows the germs off the wad of gum after he peels it off his face.

I've also discussed how bubbling experts feared the introduction of Hubba Bubba would decimate their hobby. But once everyone warmed up to the ol' Fighter, bubblers were disappointed that too few stores carried this product. Meanwhile, Bubblicious - with the old logo that blew a bubble - proliferated wildly at grocery checkout lanes.

This was also back in the days when kids who were shopping with their parents knew how to exercise more restraint when demanding the oldsters buy them candy at the checkout lane. Nowadays, probably no brand of bubble gum is easy to find there, because parents just give in and buy it all.

Real ID meets its match?

Real ID - the unconstitutional national ID card system - was one of the most outrageous Bush initiatives and was among the most likely to be scuttled once America got a real President.

Just days after President Obama took office, it already looks like Real ID may be on the way out.

Obama's Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has opposed the far-right Real ID. As Governor of Arizona, she signed a law to bar that state from complying with this unfunded mandate. Now Napolitano says the government has to "rethink" Real ID.

"Rethink" it? Hell, what's there to "rethink"? The Bush regime obviously didn't think at all when it passed Real ID, so why delay scrapping it? The Bush cult is mere background noise now, so what can they do if Real ID is abolished - other than whine about it on the Internet?

If Kentucky complies with Real ID, state officials will have been guilty of treason for surrendering to the rogue Bush regime.

(Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-22-securelicense_N.htm)

Bush worst President since...? ('Pail Poll)

Last week's 'Pail Poll asked you whether President Obama should institute court-packing to restore sanity to the Supreme Court. You voted 22 to 19 in favor of such an effort.

Our new 'Pail Poll asks whether Bush was the worst President...uh, wait a minute! Was Bush even President? He was installed in office by the Supreme Court, remember? And who could forget how Bush wanted to delay the 2004 election because he was afraid he might lose?

With the smoldering ruins of the past 8 years behind us, now you can vote in the 'Pail Poll, which Katherine Harris can't rig.

GOP tosses Palin's clothes in trash bags

The ongoing scandal surrounding Failin' Palin's $200,000 wardrobe that she wore only once expands to even more embarrassing heights!

Now $180,000 worth of the RNC-provided garb has been found crammed into garbage bags at party headquarters. This after the Republican Party promised to donate the fancy clothes to charity.

Throwing away $180,000 of clothes is supposed to benefit Americans how? I suspect party operatives were either going to throw the clothes out or leave them in the trash bags until everyone forgot about the scandal and then take the clothes for themselves. Does it really take this long to find a charity to take the clothes?

If indeed they planned on throwing the clothes away, maybe it was so Norm Coleman could find a new outfit - seeing how he likes to rummage through dumpsters and all.

(Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/01/23/2009-01-23_trashed_180k_worth_of_palins_clothes_rep.html)

Murder may prompt new restraint policy

After scuzzbag guards at Parmadale Family Services (a so-called "treatment" facility in Ohio run by Catholic Charities) murdered a 17-year-old girl by brutally restraining her, answers have been slow to come.

However, following this death, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland wants a statewide policy on face-down restraints - the type of restraints that killed the teen.

And there should be a policy. A policy to outlaw restraints completely, that is.

In fact, there already is, apparently. Unless I'm missing something, face-down restraints seem to be already banned in Ohio. One has to ask to why the regulations aren't being enforced.

This restraint method has killed over 40 young people in America since 1993.

In the meantime, murder charges should be pursued against the guards.

(Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OH_TREATMENT_CENTER_DEATH_OHOL-?SITE=OHCIN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)

DreadChoice

The Last Word of 8/16/07 touched on a Washington Post piece that showed that students in D.C. who attended private schools under a federally funded voucher "experiment" showed no academic gains.

But in BushAmerica, if a program fails, it's more likely to be replicated elsewhere. Ohio did just that when it began its misnamed Educational Choice Scholarship program - or EdChoice.

EdChoice in effect gives taxpayer money (over $70,000,000 a year) to private and religious schools - in open defiance of the Constitution. The money could have been spent on public schools in poor neighborhoods, but instead it goes to private schools with the patronizing expectation that the schools will gain a captive audience of poor students.

I'm not exactly rich, but I went to several private schools as a youth - and believe me, most of the ones I attended ain't hurting for money. Private schools also don't have to follow regulations that govern public schools, and they even get tax breaks and other handouts besides vouchers.

Most of the private schools I attended ain't good either, which proves good money was just being thrown after bad. I'm sure there's fine private schools out there, but my experience is far from unique.

Now Ohioans have learned this the hard way, as the Republican-backed EdChoice has also proven to be an unqualified disaster.

About 3 out of 10 EdChoice students failed the writing portion of all-important statewide standardized tests. About 4 in 10 failed reading. About 6 in 10 failed math - and the same amount flunked social studies. And about 7 in 10 failed science.

This is how private schools "educate" our kids? Public schools keep having to close down and slash courses because they don't have money, but private schools get gobs and gobs of dough just to turn out uneducated young people.

I'm not in the least bit surprised. I'm only surprised this was actually reported. The Ohio Department of Education does not compile such statistics for private schools as it does for public and charter schools. The Cincinnati Enquirer had to make a public records request just to gather them. Officials won't even disclose which private schools get EdChoice money.

Because state education officials don't compile these numbers, private schools won't lose voucher money if they fail. So there's not even any accountability.

But the Republicans continue to support EdChoice, despite its failures. It suits their agendas of privatizing everything and of intensive social engineering.

The right-wing brain trust is blaming the Cincinnati Enquirer for daring to run this story (even though the Enquirer has editorialized in favor of vouchers for years). They accused political foes of "feeding" facts to the newspaper. So the facts are supposed to just be covered up for political reasons, according to them.

Even in an era when accountability has become a four-letter word, EdChoice's fleecing of Ohio taxpayers just about takes the cake. Public funds can be spent on public schools or health projects, but instead it gets squandered on private schools that perform more poorly than their public counterparts.

The Buckeye State should ask schools that accepted EdChoice vouchers to return the money they've received. That would be accountability.

(Source: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090124/NEWS0102/901240345/1055/NEWS)

Jeweler faces a different kind of ring

In apparent retaliation for the weakening of right-wing hegemony, I was rousted out of bed this morning by another hang-up phone call.

I could just see some moron thrashing about their office or living room like a baby, cursing "libs", smashing flowerpots, and angrily spewing saliva while they frantically dial my number.

Until very recently (like a few weeks ago) I would have complained about this phone call here but not done anything about it - except maybe photograph the house or business where the call came from. For decades now, the policy of both the phone company and local law enforcement has been to do nothing, so I couldn't do much either.

But this is the 2009 Tim they're dealing with - not the 1988 Tim. So I traced the call and called 'em right back. When a man answered, I mashed the keypad of my phone with my hand and flooded him with a cacophony of high-pitched touch tones.

Oh, did I commit phone harassment? Well, obviously the phone harassment I've suffered is legal, because the authorities don't do anything about it - so I'm assuming it's legal for me to call the harassers right back.

Later I looked up the number and found that it belongs to a jewelry store a couple miles away.

These assholes didn't think I'd fight back, did they? Before the call, they were probably saying to themselves, "Ha ha, he's just going to write up an entry about how we called him, and we'll just do the same thing again later."

But ask the man whose ears are ringing now who got the last laugh this time.

You fuck with me, and I respond in kind.

Fair wage bill nears passage!

Instead of dwelling on issues like "dirty" and "druggie" video games, we should be worried about economic woes that hit American families harum-scarum in the wallet.

Now Congress finally is.

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that you couldn't sue for pay discrimination if you waited more than 6 months after the discrimination occurred - even if you didn't discover the discrimination within 6 months. In doing so, the court tossed out a $360,000 award to a female Goodyear worker who was paid less than male colleagues.

The Supremes' ruling that denied workers their right to equal pay was an activist one - and it gutted years of established law. Years and years and years of it.

A bill in Congress last year would have remedied this outrage for future victims of pay bias. Unbelievably, however, Congress didn't pass this bill. (And this was a Democratic Congress?)

But now things may be changing. A new fair wage bill to clean up the Supreme Court's rancid mess has now cleared the Senate and is likely to become law.

Finally! Of course, this only restores the law that existed before the right-wing Federalist Society cultists on the Supreme Court got a hold of it. Still, you have to start somewhere.

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/22/AR2009012201787.html)

We're on a trail to nowhere...

Well, we were (past tense) on a trail to nowhere. But now we're finally on a trail to somewhere, and what I did yesterday proves it.

As the Peace Bike and I took a tour of the east side of Cincinnati, the very first thing we did was contravene an Allowed Cloud. Allowed Cloud defiance was all the rage last year, but even then, I wouldn't have done what I did yesterday. But along comes 2009, and I went right ahead without hesitation.

Cincinnati has a trail to nowhere: It runs northeast from downtown and simply ends at a roped-off industrial ruins. But yesterday I noticed that US 52 doesn't have the best cycling amenities, even after the multimillion-dollar reconstruction. So I asked myself what could possibly go wrong if I continued biking on the trail past the barrier:



Was I legally wrong? It would take all the legal knowhow of Clarence Darrow, Griffin Bell, and Abraham Lincoln to figure that out. Even if it was private property, it was certainly abandoned. If you abandon perfectly good items by leaving them out on the curb for the trash collector to take, do you have any business complaining if someone bops along and takes them?

I benefited from what I did yesterday - and society benefited as well. If I didn't take the initiative, who would? Real property has become concentrated so heavily in the hands of a few that it's an oligopoly. These days, you're on the property of a large business if you take a step in almost any direction, and the problem has to be exposed because it's unsustainable.

Now we know how emboldened I might have become if the '88 election had turned out better.

While I was biking through the forbidden zone behind the Allowed Cloud, I thought I was busted when I saw an official-looking white truck milling about up ahead. But all it did was turn off onto US 52.

As icing on the cake, I went through the roped-off area again on the way home. Quickest route, so why not?

Obama supporter's house burns

Bush cultists seem to be in the retaliation phase of their Post-Election Derangement Obsession Syndrome. And if you don't think they're unhinged enough to violently retaliate against opponents, then you don't know them like I do.

In Cumming, Georgia, an Obama supporter's house has burned to the ground in a suspicious fire. This occurred after the house was vandalized with racist graffiti, and not long after the resident received a threatening letter.

Cumming is in Forsyth County. To give you an idea of how right-wing that county is, it went 78% Republican in the presidential election. My county went only 60% GOP, but if a fire like that happened here (even if there was no vandalism or harassing mail beforehand), I'd be almost certain it was arson.

Also, Forsyth County received national attention in the late '80s for its virulent racism.

If this was a politically motivated arson, it wouldn't be the first such case in America in recent years. Several years ago, right-wing terrorists burned a Virginia family's home because they opposed the Iraq War.

Do you see why it's not irrational to strongly suspect that right-wing extremists intentionally burned the house in Georgia? Always keep an eye on your enemies, folks.

(Source: http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/article/13898)

Statue of Liberty to reopen

This may seem like a small move - but (as the White Cloud commercial used to say) little things mean a lot, as Bushists are now slowly becoming mere background noise.

President Obama is scheduled today to reopen the Statue of Liberty to visitors. This national treasure was closed several years ago by the cut-and-run Bush regime. Bush conservatives liked to think of themselves as America's tough guys, but they were such cowards that they kept the Statue of Liberty closed for years.

Maybe Bush should be the one to cut the ribbon just so he has to climb 400 stairs. But he probably doesn't know how to hold scissors without cutting his finger off.

(Source: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Park-Service-to-Reopen-Lady-Libertys-Crown.html)

Catholic school sued over student's sex assault

This might be the story that finally sets everyone straight in their view that private schools can do no wrong.

A $250,000 lawsuit now accuses St. Joseph Elementary School, a Catholic school in Crescent Springs, Kentucky, of letting a student sexually assault a female schoolmate. (It's unknown whether the perpetrator was male or female.) Apparently the sexual assault happened in only 2nd grade.

The victim had been bullied repeatedly from January to May of last year. These incidents all occurred at school or under the school's watch. The school was notified - but the lawsuit says the school refused to act. The pattern of abuse finally culminated with the sex assault.

The suit also alleges that the perpetrator also had a history of harassing other students.

I don't think I know any of the individual school employees who are being sued, or to what degree they would be responsible for the incidents. But I do know for a fact that other schools in the Diocese of Covington have a proven record of condoning bullying. At several Catholic schools that operated under the diocese's auspices that I attended, student harassment was the norm, not the exception. At these schools, administrators not only knew about it but encouraged it outright.

In the Crescent Springs case, I don't know the details, so I can't speculate.

Unfortunately, schools in northern Kentucky (private and public alike) have a lot of clout with the system. A school's side of things is usually considered an incontrovertible truth, even if there's overpowering evidence the school is wrong. So I can't guarantee that justice will ever be served.

(Source: http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20090122/NEWS0103/301220072)

Even members of Congress not safe from bank hassles

You'd think federal legislators wouldn't have to put up with this shit, but I guess nobody's safe.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California) had to spend most of 2 hours on hold trying to get Bank of America to help a constituent. This included several disconnections and transfers to lines that did not work. The ordeal finally ended when she was confronted by a recording that told her to use the bank's website.

Waters said this exemplifies how average customers are treated.

Am I correct in my belief that Bank of America got quite a bit of bailout dough? If so, Congress needs to just take it all right back.

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3701663&mesg_id=3701663)

Gitmo to close; torture banned

When I woke up this morning and turned on the TV to check the weather for today's bike jaunt around Cincinnati, the first thing I saw was the words "GITMO CLOSED."

As President Obama's first major act in office, he's ordered the Guantanamo Bay death camp closed within a year.

Why would it take a year? Because the Bush regime bungled the cases against the detainees so spectacularly. Because of Bush cronies' incompetence, we'll never know how many of the men who are detained at Gitmo now are actually terrorists. If the government truly thought they were, why didn't it put them on trial instead of locking them up for 7 years without trying them? If they're terrorists, they should be punished, but how do we know they are without even a trial?

Incompetence and failure to abide by the Constitution can have consequences - and this time, the Bush regime is to blame.

One also has to ask why Cuba didn't evict Guantanamo Bay.

At least the DLC didn't get to Obama on this issue. I bet some crackpot congressperson is going to try to block Obama's order from taking effect, just because they think Bush's actions are supposed to be sacrosanct and irreversible. But if that happens, think how bad it's going to look for them.

Obama also signed an executive order that bans harsh interrogations that constitute torture. The order also closes CIA detention centers worldwide.

See, folks, these are the kinds of actions we have a right to expect from our leaders. No more GOP/DLC bullshit like that which ruled the roost for 28 years. America may finally have a leader who gets it.

But like I've said, with the DLC around at all, don't get your hopes up too much.

(Source: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/01/obama_orders_gu.html)

Freepers in meltdown mode over county's vote (more Freeper Madness)

The Internet's most notorious outpost of fascism has been roll-on-the-floor hilarious lately!

Some of you have expressed disappointment with this feature, on the grounds that Free Republic is so irrelevant these days that it's not even worth my time to poke fun at them. But I think this feature highlights what a simpering mess Freak Rethuglic has become.

Much noise was emitted by the rightwingnutosphere after candidate Obama made a statement referring to the supposed bitterness of rural America. But this installment (like the one in which Freepers called western Pennsylvania a "traitor area") shows that Free Republic's regulars look down on working-class rural areas far more than most other individuals ever could.

The Freeper brain trust's ire was stoked by an article about the fact that Obama won Menifee County, a tiny, rural bailiwick in east central Kentucky. In response to the article, one Freeper declared:

"These peckernecks just want mo' benefits so they can keep the oxycontin rollin' in."

You know, if conservatives such as those on Free Republic want to be seen as in step with the country, it might be wise if they'd shed the bigoted stereotypes about working-class Kentuckians. This statement of theirs makes them sound just like the spoiled preps I encountered in high school - almost verbatim (except OxyContin wasn't introduced in America until after I was in high school).

That Freepers would make such a statement speaks volumes about their intolerance.

Folks often make comments about regions that might be misinterpreted. But the above quote leaves no doubt as to the nasty spirit in which it's intended. That quote is an active volcano (not one that's been dormant for years) - and it's hard to misread a volcano.

Another post of theirs however is downright uproarious. I almost had to do a double-take, because I couldn't believe they said it. Here it comes:

"The largest employer in Menifee is the school district. Those are lib just about anywhere you go."

Stop it! Stop it! You're killing me via excessive laughter!

I know, man. Schools are really, really "lib", aren't they? I've known for a while that Freepers have monitored The Online Lunchpail - but obviously they don't understand any of it, if they think schools are "lib." There's probably 5 to 10 entries on my blog per week about the right-wing leanings of America's schools.

Out of about 10 different schools, I don't think I ever had a school principal who was left of center.

Free Republic may well be the Internet's best comedy website!

(Source: http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/661598.html)

Obama retakes oath

Gee, thanks a heap, Katherine Harris, for giving America 30 years of John Roberts.

Ironically, much as the 2000 election recount had countless do-overs because of Harris, now Obama's swearing-in has had to have one too - all because Roberts mangled the Oath of Office so spectacularly.

So today, Obama retook the oath.

At least now this knocks the wind out of the sails of those in the blogosphere who insisted Obama wasn't really President just because of Roberts's blunders.

(Source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/01/21/obama_takes_his_oath_of_office.html)

DeMint and Diaper Dave think it's still 1992

You'd think most opposition to Hillary Clinton being Secretary of State would be from the left (following her support of the Iraq War). But in the upside-down world of the Senate, her only opponents are from the right.

The only senators who voted to reject Clinton are...Jim DeMint and David Vitter (2 of the most right-wing Republican senators).

Why? Apparently they're still upset that Mad Dog Bush lost in '92. In conservaland, almost everything since then seems to have been refracted through that single event. Never mind that the conservatives almost always had their way for years after that. Someone told them "no" once, and they haven't gotten over it yet.

Not exactly the behavior of winners, huh?

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3700395)

Mukasey v. ACLU

The title of this entry says it all, doesn't it?

But it's the name of a real court case.

The case involved the Bush regime's ongoing defense of the misnamed Child Online Protection Act. COPA was a law that censored online content by forcing some websites to make folks provide a credit card number.

Contrary to press reports, the law was enforced. And I lost access to material that wasn't even pornographic because of it - even though I was an adult at the time.

I (a grown man) couldn't access historic maps, because I didn't have a credit card yet (even though the maps were free). All because of COPA.

But now COPA is gone, finished, dead. This time for good.

Even the current Supreme Court wouldn't uphold it. After Mucus Man appealed lower court rulings again and again, the Supremes have now let COPA wink out without a whimper.

What's astounding though is that Congress passed this unconstitutional law when they could have been worrying about important things like the economy. They were more interested in appeasing the self-anointed smut cops than in making sure Americans had enough money to feed their kids on.

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3700016)

Separation of church and state? Not in Ohio!

Here's a little secret: Ohio doesn't have separation of church and state.

I know the response to that statement is a collective gasp, but it's true, at least in practice.

Ohio hasn't had church-state separation in years. Other states aren't perfect either, but Ohio ranks near the top in taxpayer funding of religious schools.

This unconstitutional fusion of government and religion goes almost unnoticed, so some will accuse me of splitting hairs with a waterpick. But it's gone on probably my whole adult life and has only expanded.

I'm not opposing religion. But I'm hopping furious that any American jurisdiction would take the taxpayers' money and give it to religious bodies.

One of the biggest such expenditures is vouchers for religious schools. This is one of conservatives' perennial pet issues and possibly the most potentially damaging. Voucher backers claim to be "friends of the poor" by supporting it, but make no mistake about it: This is one of the most nauseating and underhanded abuses of America's poor occurring today.

I'm clearly below the poverty line, and I think vouchers are exploitative. Vouchers are marketed by right-wing think tanks and wealthy industrialists but almost never by representatives of the poor or working class. Vouchers actually weaken public schools and draw students into private schools that may be no better. In fact, some private schools are joined at the face with right-wing causes (including economic issues). I know this, because I've experienced it firsthand.

And vouchers have failed. Congress's voucher experiment in the Washington, D.C., schools did not improve academic performance or the quality of education. Furthermore, in Arizona, 76% of voucher money has gone to cover students who already attended private schools.

Is it any wonder that, in every state that's had a voter referendum on vouchers, the idea has been rejected by the widest margins in the poorest areas?

If conservatives are such "friends of the poor", why did they support the '96 federal welfare "reform" law?

Although Ohio has slashed benefits to needy families, it has become more and more generous to private schools (many of which are already swimming in dough). In Cincinnati alone, private and religious schools were set to make millions from it. This has gone on with very little media coverage.

But now many believe that budget woes may force these handouts to be slashed.

Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland wanted to eliminate this program altogether. But the legislature - which at the time was run by right-wing Republicans - stymied his efforts.

None of this should even be an issue, as the program is clearly unconstitutional. Despite the flagrant unconstitutionality of it, the U.S. Supreme Court approved a related program in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, an activist ruling in 2002 (surely one of the worst SCrOTUS decisions of recent years).

I don't have any illusions that the current Supreme Court cares what the Constitution says, but we need a tool to help knock the wind out of its sails. In 1875, the U.S. House overpoweringly approved a constitutional amendment saying in part that "no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefor, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations." The Senate rejected the amendment, but many state constitutions added a similar provision.

We need to revive this amendment and pass it.

Ohio, however, appears to be among the states that have a provision like this in its own constitution. So I wonder if the courts will even pay heed if it's a federal amendment.

(Source: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090117/NEWS0102/901170381/1058)

Grover's nose ground into powder ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Not one person who has ever seen a television screen doesn't think it's uproarious when something gets ruined on TV. Americans familiar with the medium love to cite the 'Seinfeld' episode in which Poppy pees on Jerry's sofa, or the 'Simpsons' installment in which a rare comic book gets utterly destructimated.

But when something gets ruined on 'Sesame Street', it's 100 times as funny.

And that's why you'll laugh at this 'Sesame Street' sketch that was probably made around 1973:



The Frank Oz-directed segment features a red ball rolling down an elaborate roller coaster-like track, as a voice repeatedly counts sets of 3 items over a Lawrence Welk-style music bed. Oz spent months building the track. It is believed by many that the ball is the nose of a Muppet - most likely Grover. The setup is similar to something I remember seeing outside a museum on an out-of-town vacation once or twice. (I think it was either COSI in Columbus or that science museum in Chicago, but I'm not sure.)

The first minute of the piece is mesmerizing, educational, and clever - but not laugh-out-loud humorous. The real amusement comes at the end, when Grover's nose falls into a metal box where it is ground into useless red powder.

Unfortunately, many believe this ending was phased out because the sight of grinding up the detached nose of a lovable, furry Muppet scared many of the show's young viewers. It was replaced by an ending in which the nose becomes a cherry on top of a sundae. The dessert is promptly devoured by a little girl.

One envisions the manager of a Friendly's stalking Sesame Street with a butcher knife.

I personally feel more uncomfortable about the replacement ending, because of the idea of eating something coated with grime from rolling down a roller coaster track.

Original ending or not, this sketch was far more creative than what appears on 'Sesame Street' these days.

America turns a corner?

I don't want to get my hopes up, because I've been let down before. (Bill Clinton's mind-numbing lurch to the right in the '96 campaign is one of the reasons I later switched to the Greens.) But I think with Obama's inauguration today, America may have finally turned a corner.

If I had this blog 5 years ago, I'd have a lot less trouble finding material, thanks to the myriad examples of unprecedented right-wing tyranny unfolding at the time. Tyranny creep is a form of natural selection: In order for me to notice some new right-wing policy, it often has to be even nuttier than what came before it. Generally, this trend has gone on since 1981.

But I think now we'll have more success at reversing it. One has a right to hope so. Public sumptuary laws and pseudoephedrine logs are among the only major examples of bugfuck insanity that continue to expand now, so the trend may already be cracking.

What people have said to me really is true: No excuses. But that goes for me as well as every person who reads this. I will fight harder than ever - yes, even harder than last year. It starts tonight and continues until I get called home.

County doesn't know what state it's in

Does San Diego County even know what state it's in?

In 1996, California voters approved a referendum to legalize medical marijuana. It's a valid law passed by voters. San Diego County doesn't get to decide that it's not a real law.

But they sure do try.

The county has now gone to the U.S. Supreme Court in the hopes that it will rule that federal prohibitions against marijuana trump California's law. San Bernardino County has joined San Diego County in its efforts.

So these counties don't want seriously ill people to have access to a substance that state law allows them?

There's no legal basis for superseding the state law and the will of the voters, because the Constitution puts such powers in states' hands. A state court has already ruled on this.

San Diego County is already undergoing a budget crisis because of right-wing mismanagement. I guess launching a war against seriously ill residents takes priority over reining in the fiscal crisis.

How's that for right-wing meanness?

(Source: http://nctimes.com/articles/2009/01/16/news/sandiego/z902e5e7a37f7085788257540007cadfb.txt)

Talk show host threatened with prison for disagreeing with drug war

Bushism lives (unfortunately).

Ian Freeman of the radio show 'Free Talk Live' is now facing hard time in New Hampshire all because he dares to oppose the failed War on Drugs.

The talk show host is being threatened with 90 days in prison just for writing about and attending a protest against the country's draconian drug laws. The official charge? He's being charged with "criminal liability for the conduct of another." This means he's actually being charged just for reporting about others' drug offenses.

That's like if they charged a newspaper just for having a police blotter column.

One is reminded of Dan Lungren's attempts to imprison people for making anti-DARE shirts.

When people are threatened with prison just for their views, it's not exactly a sign of freedom.

(Source: http://www.newhampshirefreepress.com/NHFreePress/?q=node%2F309)

Did John Roberts intentionally flub his lines?

Did anyone else catch this?

The Chief Justice fumbled and stumbled so much while administering the Oath of Office that one wonders if this wasn't a gimmick to invalidate it - and presumably force Obama out of office.

I don't think it will work though, because Obama, for his part, seemed to catch Roberts's flubs.

The wingnutosphere is already trying to suggest that the swearing-in is invalid because of this. Naturally, they're blaming Obama for Roberts's inability to form complete sentences.

The next few years are going to be whiny ones in conservaland, methinks.

Bye, George

Eight years after the most certifiably insane occupant of the White House in history seized power, he now exits the door as an even sadder mess of a man than he was at the start.

Let's take a look at some of the memorable moments in Bush's fucked-up life...

Even in college, Bush was doing his part to solve America's looming transportation needs. In the above photo, he's trying out the lighter-than-air dirigible he invented, which uses the helium that fills his head.

Once in office, Bush showed America's young people the dangers of cigarettes by demonstrating what happens when you swallow too many of them.

Bush was also the national poet, as the slogan on the above picture proves.

Not one to be deterred by scientific consensus, Bush was eager to prove that his actions had nothing to do with depletion of the ozone layer - much to the olfactory discomfort of members of his administration.

Bush shows he knows how to use the iron-ons he got from a Froot Loops box without burning himself.

Here, ol' George shows us the disguise he uses to sneak up on the Taliban.

Bush finally gets hauled away for unlawful impersonation of a President.

Bye, George. Don't get your stupid face caught in the gate for your new neighborhood in Dallas the taxpayers were forced to purchase for you.

Law of the sea for bikes? (more Freeper Madness)

Did you know that the law of the sea applies to bicycles and cars on land?

It does according to the right-wing minions of Free Republic.

In their marathon thread about the doctor accused of intentionally injuring cyclists, Freepers showed their true colors as well as their incurably dangerous stupidity.

One user said:

"I gotta go with the doctor on this one."

Siding with a man who has a reputation of attacking, harassing, and injuring cyclists? You're an idiot, Freeper person.

Another Freeper said:

"Besides,, law of the sea says the smaller more maneuverable craft must avoid the bigger one. A bike has better visibility and maneuverability than a car. The poor doctor,, they broke his window!"

Since when did the law of the sea apply on land, you moron?

Does that mean we're on international waters, even though we're on land?

Maybe the reason Freak Rethuglic's merry users have threatened to assassinate John Kerry and encouraged voter fraud is that they think land is international water and American laws don't apply.

Lose a job...Sha na na na, sha na na na na...

Last month when I applied for that Census Bureau job, I figured I'd give the agency a month to respond.

All too predictably, they never did, so it's obvious I didn't get that job.

Looks like I'm going to have to live off my writing gigs for a while longer. Surprise, surprise. But I've managed this for 4 years, so I guess I can manage a bit longer.

I can tell what happened here. Probably someone else applied for the same census job who had a diploma from a high school that was more "favored." I graduated from an inner-city public school, but I have to compete against pampered exurbanites for jobs. (Incidentally, the school I graduated from is not in the school district I'm always criticizing here.)

The urban school I attended was just as good as or better than other schools at the time. But it didn't have prestige, so you know how that goes. The Establishment takes care of its own, regardless of merit. In BushAmerica, patronage and influence trump knowledge and skill.

Inevitably, some wingnut is going to blame me for not getting the census job, as if it's my fault I wasn't allowed attending schools except in central cities. Then again, I'm glad I got to attend an urban school instead of continuing to be subjected to the suburbs' rightist attitudes - so the joke's on them.

Classist bigot threatens guv run

Meet spoiled baby Rick Lazio.

The Republican former congressman from Long Island has always had lots of opportunities in life. But - like the right-wing fuckchop he is - he never appreciated them. Lazio had such a sense of entitlement that he used his congressional seat to lord it over the American public.

Rick Lazio's hatred of the poor shined through every time he opened his mangled mouth. Probably the lowlight of his political career was his sponsorship of a law to force poor people who lived in public housing to perform unpaid labor - or lose their homes.

Read the Thirteenth Amendment sometime, Rick, you prick. The Thirteenth Amendment says, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

So unless being poor had become a crime (as that was the '90s, it probably was), Lazio's law was unconstitutional. Not just possibly, but certainly. There's no way around it, and he knew it.

What was this law supposed to accomplish? If its purpose was to prove Lazio was an extremist asswipe, it served its goal quite well. Rich people buying million-dollar mansions don't have to perform unpaid labor - so give me one good reason why the poor should have to.

The purpose of the law certainly wasn't to save the taxpayers money - because it cost quite a bit to implement. Several years ago, I read that the law wasn't being enforced, because the government didn't have the money to enforce it.

So the joke's on you, Rick.

After Lazio's repeated meltdowns during his ill-fated Senate race against Hillary Clinton, it appeared unlikely Lazio would ever get another chance to win any elected office higher than village poop sorter.

After thumbing his nose at the Constitution, he should have been disqualified anyway. Members of Congress take an oath to uphold the Constitution - and he defied it outright.

Lazio didn't learn from the humiliation he experienced when he ran against Hillary Clinton (despite greatly outspending her). Most stupid people don't learn. So now he's threatening to run for Governor of New York.

And get this: Lazio is trying to portray himself as a level-headed moderate instead of the right-wing extremist he is. That's just as laughable as the erratic behavior he's already known for.

I can imagine what New York Democrats are saying about the news that Lazio might be their Republican opponent. I bet they're saying, "Go ahead, Rick. TAKE YOUR VERY BEST FUCKING SHOT!!!"

Looks like that's one governorship the GOP ain't going to be picking up - at least if Lazio is their candidate.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/17/115210/601/192/685260)

Doctor accused of injuring cyclists pleads not guilty

Southern California has been the site of several noteworthy hate crimes and acts of official repression against bicyclists in the past few years, and the trend continues.

Last year, a physician zooming down a road in his luxury Infiniti sedan reportedly slammed on his brakes in front of several bicyclists. Police reports say it was intentional and that he boasted of his intent to "teach them a lesson." (This information is from the usually blackballed L.A. Times.)

This action flung one of the cyclists through the car's window. Another fell to the pavement.

Sounds like the only person who needed to be taught a lesson was the so-called doc. Bikes are legally entitled to use the same roads as cars. (Exception: most freeways. But this was not a freeway.) He also has a lot to learn about being a doctor, as doctors are not supposed to cause harm. (Read the Hippocratic Oath.)

Now the 59-year-old has pleaded not guilty to an assortment of charges: felony reckless driving, battery with serious injury, causing serious injury while attempting to commit a felony, and mayhem. It turns out he also faces a misdemeanor charge of reckless driving causing injury in an earlier confrontation with another cyclist. (He reportedly ran a cyclist off the road on purpose. It's also been reported that he has regularly pulled out of his own driveway just to taunt cyclists.)

If guilty, they need to throw the book at him. This man sounds like a menace to the community who has a sense of entitlement and shows no remorse whatsoever for intentionally injuring other travelers.

I don't expect him to face serious punishment though. Only the very naive truly believe postdemocratic America doesn't have two separate "justice" systems: one for the well-off, and one for the not-so-well-off. We've seen this dual system played out again and again - especially with regard to other wealthy bullies who have violently confronted cyclists.

Sounds like that community is crying out for a Commuter Clot.

(Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/a-brentwood-phy.html)

Wikipedia or Conservapedia?

Is it Wikipedia, or is it Conservapedia?

Or are they one and the same now, as conservatives seem to continue infiltrating volunteer admin positions at Wikipedia?

In the ongoing saga of conservative attempts to mold Wikipedia to reflect their fantasy world, another of my edits was reverted yesterday. I received a note from a volunteer admin saying that "one or more of the external links you added do not comply with our guidelines for external links and have been removed."

I hear ya, smartypants. Trouble is, I hadn't added an external link. So - as Judge Mills Lane might have said - his complaint is "ppphh!"

Evidently, some of these volunteer admins hallucinate about external links that don't even exist. When they sit at their computers in their sheltered home offices, pounding out whiny notes to dissidents, they probably see external links floating through the air around them. They probably try to grab these external links, only to discover that they're mere illusions.

It's sort of like the time Mitch McConnell hallucinated about a letter he claimed I sent him.

As for the volunteer editor in this latest matter, I checked his Wikipedia page, and it said, "This user page has been vandalized many, many times."

Gee, I wonder why. Remember, this guy is probably the type who thinks "vandalism" means correcting conservatives' false information.

We all love Wikipedia, but as long as conservative revisionism is allowed to continue there, the reader-edited online encyclopedia becomes less and less useful.

Taliban spreads to Pakistan

Liar Bush in 2003: "We destroyed the Taliban in Afghanistan."

Some nobody in 2008: "We destroyed the Taliban in Afghanistan."

Me in 2009: No you didn't.

Bush cultists tolerate no dissent from their foreign policy objectives. In today's McCarthyist atmosphere, once you publicly challenge their views on foreign policy, you're almost done for. But now we see the results of the Bush regime taking its eye off the ball for years.

The Taliban has now spread to Pakistan, where the right-wing religious militia is banning girls from attending school. Over 40,000 girls in northwestern Pakistan have now been deprived of an education under the Taliban, which has blown up schools and decapitated opponents.

All this in what was previously one of Pakistan's more progressive regions.

Of course, this is the same Taliban that Republican administrations in Washington backed in the '80s and '90s. The American government said the Taliban were Afghanistan's freedom fighters back then. This is also the same Taliban that Bill Frist wanted kept in Afghanistan's government after they had supposedly been ousted.

Now do you understand why we shouldn't blindly follow right-wing foreign policy aims?

The Taliban's power was typically thought to be confined to Afghanistan until now. Other countries have similar movements - let's not deceive ourselves into thinking America's Religious Right is significantly different - but everyone thought the Taliban itself would never be in control of anything outside Afghanistan.

But not anymore - because of endeavors like the Iraq War that took our eye off the ball.

(Source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-pakistan_18int.ART.State.Edition1.4ec1ee1.html)

Court-packing? ('Pail Poll)

Last week's 'Pail Poll is now closed, and it asked which option would be better for restoring sanity to America's airwaves. According to the final tally, 6 of you voted to restore ownership caps; 4 of you voted to revive the Fairness Doctrine.

The latest 'Pail Poll asks whether the Obama administration should institute court-packing of the Supreme Court.

Court-packing would allow him to appoint more Justices than the usual 9 who make up the court. It would serve the purpose of canceling the influence of existing Justices.

After the rogue Bush regime got to appoint 2 of the most patently disastrous Justices in modern history, what do you think? Bush's Justices are among several who have consistently thumbed their noses at constitutional law in favor of their own personal whims.

FDR proposed court-packing to combat a Supreme Court that was also quite questionable. Should Obama do the same?

The typewriter made a mistake lololololol!

At a Catholic high school I once attended (yes, this was the bullying mill), I had to take a class that was taught by a priest who always blamed the typewriter every time he handed out assignment sheets that were full of errors.

Well, by that "logic", the typewriter made a mistake here on Monday. Did you catch the typo?

By leaving out one word, it changed the entire meaning of the entry's main idea. It has since been corrected.

It blunted the point of the piece - which was that the government of a supposedly "democratic" country allied with the United States is now outlawing political parties just because of the parties' majority ethnic group.

The error was that I accidentally left out the word 'in' in the first sentence, which changed its whole meaning.

Expect more of this. My local school system wasn't exactly known for high literacy standards, and now we see the results.

The least effective gum ad ever? (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Weekends were made for taking a break from politics - as new readers of this blog will quickly learn.

More specifically, weekends were made for poking fun at old gum commercials. Because they're funny, you see. Often unintentionally so.

Our latest exhibit in this weekly feature may be the least effective gum commersh ever. It aired around 1984 for Trident's soft bubble gum:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-n9b5YDsSA

For starts, the woman in that ad looked and talked like a younger Sarah Palin. But since nobody back then knew who Failin' Palin was, I'll give the ad a pass on that.

The ad was likely ineffective because in those days people expected bubble gum to make giant bubbles the size of their heads. The '80s were a different world from today, you see. But when the woman in this commersh bubbled, it wasn't exactly 'Guinness Book Of World Records' material. It's almost as if she tried blowing a bubble out of Play-Doh.

Also, this was in the days when commercials always had jingles that sounded like they had 20 singers singing all at once. The jingle in this ad and another from the same series sounds vaguely like it uses the same singers as the ill-fated "Gotta be right!" ads for Frisch's Big Boy restaurants. Not exactly the same, because the Frisch's singers were more nasal, but close.

So laugh at this commersh. It's funny!

Some blogs like to get visitors

I hate to be a fussbudget, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. I haven't solicited visitors here since this past June, so I think the time is right.

In June, I told you about the ongoing suppression of this blog, including the fact that its Wikipedia entry was yanked by volunteer editors solely because of its stridently populist political views.

This blog experienced healthy growth last year, but we still need more action. I've done my part to spread the word. We're in this fight together, so tell your friends about the 'Pail! Do it now before you forget!

We need you. Like the flower needs the rain, you know, we need you. Guess I'll start it all again, you know, we need you. Like the winter needs the spring, you know, we need you...

Open thread

Wilbur and Orville Wright! You've discovered some road photos!

The Far Right hates the fact that I goed on a fact-finding mission in North Carolina and Virginia last month. Utterly despise it, they do.

This is the trip during which I defaced photos of Bill O'Reilly and Dr. Laura that cluttered the cover of a Yellow Pages phone book in a hotel room, by drawing mustaches and beards on them.

Because that uproarious act of protest made this trip one of the major events in the history of The Online Lunchpail, I'm announcing the release of my road photos not just on my original blog but also on the 'Pail.

I've uploaded 165 Roads Scholaring photos and videos - so many that I had to divide them into 7 parts, like the big Allowed Cloud I have to be in this case. As usual, most of these photos are of roads, but others depict other public features.

So peep, beep, weep, and eep:

http://www.angelfire.com/yt2/lastword/roadpics/nc08a.html
http://www.angelfire.com/yt2/lastword/roadpics/nc08b.html
http://www.angelfire.com/yt2/lastword/roadpics/nc08c.html
http://www.angelfire.com/yt2/lastword/roadpics/nc08d.html
http://www.angelfire.com/yt2/lastword/roadpics/nc08e.html
http://www.angelfire.com/yt2/lastword/roadpics/nc08f.html
http://www.angelfire.com/yt2/lastword/roadpics/nc08g.html

Sembler firm profits from foreclosure

The embattled BayWalk shopping complex in St. Petersburg, Florida, now seems to be approaching the end of its short life in financial ruins.

BayWalk, which opened in 2000, was developed by the Sembler Co. - which was founded by Bush-appointed diplomat and cult founder Mel Sembler. But now that foreclosure looms for BasteWalk, the Sembler Co. isn't the party that stands to lose.

That's because the Sembler Co. paid nothing for the land upon which the complex was built. However, the city paid $8,300,000. Overall, the city spent over $20,000,000 on its construction.

So who loses? The taxpayers.

In fact, if foreclosure occurs, the Sembler Co. will have made a profit.

Sounds to me like...a fleecing of America!

It gets worse. The Sembler Co. now complains that the city refused to give them rights to the development's public sidewalks to keep protesters away. Maybe it's because sidewalks are, like, public and all?

Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth! First the city invests millions in a Sembler Co. project, and then Sembler has the nerve to grumble that the city isn't giving them what they want?

Why would a shopping center face public protesters anyway? The initial demonstrations were prompted by BayWalk's ongoing racist attitudes. Later, however, authorities began doing BasteWalk's dirty work, as police arrested antiwar demonstrators despite the fact that they were on public property.

Now taxpayers are stuck with the bill for the horribly mismanaged corporate boondoggle known as BayWalk. In BushAmerica, incompetence pays.

(Source: http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/article966884.ece)

Texas drought kills cattle

The debate is over: Climate change is real and is caused by human activity.

If you watch the Cincinnati media, a drought is one day without rain. But in central Texas, a drought is a DROUGHT. Now that region is suffering the worst drought in 50 years.

The dry spell has ruined crops and is now making cattle keel over dead because there's no grass for them to eat.

Next time some right-wing whack-a-doo claims climate change is a hoax, they ought to be driven to Texas to forage for dried grass.

(Source: http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2009/01/16/2318583-texas-drought-worsens-cattle-dying)

Psychiatric guards charged in '06 beating

Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro, North Carolina, is a state-run psychiatric facility that has "services" for adults as well as young people.

The federal government has repeatedly threatened to cut off funding to Cherry Hospital unless it resolves the many complaints about its care. However, the funds never seem to be cut off - even after a detainee died after guards left him in a chair for 22 hours without feeding him or letting him use the restroom. The man died when he choked on medication and the guards wouldn't help him.

Three guards who reportedly ambushed and beat a man in 2006 were charged with misdemeanors. An assistant district attorney dismissed those charges but promised more serious charges - which were never filed by that office. But now the guards have finally been arrested on felony patient abuse charges after a special prosecutor reexamined the case.

This follows guilty verdicts against 2 other Cherry Hospital employees who beat a detainee.

In the 2006 case that prompted the new charges, the assault broke the man's nose and rib. He was threatened with further violence if he dared to report the abuse.

All this in a state-run facility, no less. I'm sure Amnesty International would be interested to hear about this.

(Source: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1368003.html)

EU blacklist loses 13 years of online history

The Internet Watch Foundation is a British nonprofit that claims to fight child porn. British ISP's rely on the IWF's blacklist to block websites.

But these days, the IWF doesn't seem too interested in going after child porn at all. A month ago, for example, it blocked almost every Internet customer in Britain from making any edits at all to Wikipedia.

I firmly believe this had nothing to do with kiddie porn and was designed to suppress political information. After all, the IWF is funded by the European Union, which isn't exactly known as a free speech giant.

Now the IWF's blacklist has led several major British ISP's to block the entire Wayback Machine website.

The Wayback Machine is an archive of 85,000,000,000 webpages going back to 1996. These include regular news sites and inoffensive personal websites that anyone might have created. But the IWF blocks them all!

Thirteen years of Internet history, gone.

Worse, the IWF's method of blocking the sites is as fraudulent as it was during its Wikipedia blockage scandal: Customers who try accessing any website on the Wayback Machine are confronted with the "Not found" spiel. Thus, many probably just think the pages are simply missing and not actually blocked.

One customer said that because of this prior restraint, he was unable to access webpages that were posted by the BBC, Parliament, the UN - and yes, even the IWF itself. Another said it was "yet more 'unintended collateral damage' from the IWF."

Well, obviously it's not unintended. The IWF pulled the same stunt last month with Wikipedia, so if it was unintentional, why didn't the IWF learn from that?

The IWF later confirmed that the Wayback Machine has been blacklisted. It says it was because of obscene images.

For the gabillionth time, THE PAGES ON WAYBACK MACHINE THAT THE IWF BLOCKED DON'T CONTAIN KIDDIE PORN!!! Understand?!?!?! So the IWF lied.

Did you honestly think the BBC or the United Nations would post child porn?

I wouldn't expect this situation to improve soon. I haven't heard of the IWF budging yet on its prior restraint of the Wayback Machine. They're not interested in fighting against outrageous filth. They're just using it as a pretext to prevent the free flow of political information.

(Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/14/demon_muzzles_wayback_machine;
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/14/iwf_details_archive_blacklisting)

Blackout prompts lawsuits

Those of you who'd yield to utility companies' supposed blamelessness no matter how negligent they are in a blackout might find your concessions lapsing once you read this story.

Last month, the Northeast faced a power outage reminiscent of the one that dogged Cincinnati in September. Some areas in New Hampshire lost power for 2 weeks. Now, Massachusetts residents are suing electricity provider Unitil for negligence because it took so long to restore power.

The suit also says Unitil ought to leave the state unless it mends its ways.

Unitil is known for charging exorbitant rates and for its frequent outages even in calm weather. (Sound familiar?) Unitil is so incompetent that legislators have demanded an inquiry by utility regulators.

(Source: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D95N2P4O1.htm)

Billion-plus settlement looms over Zyprexa

Eli Lilly & Co. has been expected this week to agree to pay a record $1,400,000,000 over its illegal marketing of Zyprexa.

This sum is to settle civil as well as criminal charges related to the marketing of the dangerous antipsychotic. Lilly had persuaded doctors to give the drug to children and the elderly - groups for which the drug wasn't even approved. Following this illegal marketing, Zyprexa use in children skyrocketed.

Zyprexa (as is common among antipsychotics) increases the risk of heart trouble, diabetes, and other disorders.

This settlement follows Lilly's frivolous attempt to seek criminal contempt charges against physicians who dared to expose Lilly's scam.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/business/15drug.html)

8-year-old taken to juvy for not tucking in shirt

Does any doubt remain that America no longer has an education system?

A family in Bonner County, Idaho, is outraged because of the way their 8-year-old daughter was treated at Kootenai Elementary School.

Recently, the 3rd-grader - who reportedly suffers from high-functioning autism - was ordered by school officials to tuck in her sweatshirt before going to a Christmas party. She refused - and began strolling off to the party anyway.

She disobeyed because she is only 8. She acts 8 because she is 8.

She did nothing violent. All she did was refuse to tuck in her shirt.

Immediately, however, school employees lapsed into attack mode. School officials ganged up on her, physically restrained her, and bruised her. She fought back, as almost any other 8-year-old would.

My philosophy is, if you lay a hand on a child, you have no business complaining if the child slugs you squarely in the teeth. I know I'm going to catch hellfire and brimstone from dominionist whack-a-doos who claim the Bible gives them the "right" to brutalize children. But I've learned to expect criticism in exchange for my enduring habit of being reasonable.

The school doesn't get it though. When the girl fought back, the school promptly called the cops. Police handcuffed her, drove her away in a cruiser, and locked her in juvenile detention. She stayed there for an hour.

You'd think that after that it would be all over except the lawsuit against the school and the police. Quite the contrary. The county prosecutor then had the gall to charge the 8-year-old with battery. The charge was later dropped.

Who really committed battery? School officials, that's who.

School officials said they were just following a plan that had been agreed to by the girl's parents. But that's not true. Her parents never saw or signed the plan.

The girl's mother is now planning a lawsuit. Hopefully, the school, the police, and the prosecutor will all be sued for everything they're worth.

I guarantee you though that if I was the parent of a child who was brutalized at school in this manner, school officials would be lucky if they didn't find themselves with a few broken bones. Unfortunately, Kentucky has a law that criminalizes even confronting school administrators - but if they want to arrest me, they'd just be making it harder on themselves.

(Source: http://www.kxly.com/global/story.asp?s=9669140)

New psychiatric drugs double risk of heart attacks

What do new antipsychotic drugs have in common with old antipsychotic drugs like Trilafon?

Like the older toxins, the new drugs also double one's risk of a fatal heart attack, according to a new Vanderbilt University study.

This is a significant health issue because the drugs are so wildly overprescribed. They're called antipsychotics - but very few who take the drugs are psychotic. Every day, you rub elbows with people young and old who have been fed these poisons.

They could be children who were diagnosed with ADHD and given the drugs at school. They could be teenagers who disagreed with a school principal. They could be your co-workers who were given the stuff by quack shrinks.

Are most of the people who take these drugs psychotic? I doubt it. Millions of Americans have their systems filled with these substances daily, and they're at risk from them.

The FDA is now finally considering a black box warning for these toxic chemicals.

(Source: http://www.themedguru.com/articles/newer_antipsychotics_just_as_risky_as_old-86120080.html)

Ohio lets utility make customers pay for blackout

You knew this would happen, didn't you?

I told you Monday that Duke Energy - the electric monopoly covering the Cincinnati region - filed a request with regulators to make customers pay for the unprecedented September blackout. In other words, households would be paying more, despite losing service for days.

That's what corporatism - the ideology of modern American conservatism - means: paying more for less reliable services.

In my lifetime, Ohio has seemed even more likely than Kentucky to rubber-stamp utility companies' demands for rate increases. Ohio utilities are supposed to be regulated by PUCO - Puke-O, as I call it - but, like ODADAS, PUCO seems to be stacked with right-wing ideologues regardless of what party controls the governorship.

To the surprise of nobody (and the disgust of everybody), Puke-O has now granted Duke's demand. Ohio customers thus will be paying more for electricity - after losing service for an extended time frame, all because Duke took so long to restore power.

Like I said Monday, you can't make this stuff up.

Puke-O seemed eager to ram the rate increase through before anyone had time to notice, but you can complain about the situation here:

https://www.puc.state.oh.us/secure/PicForm/index.cfm

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/wcposhared/story/Duke-Customers-Footing-Bill-For-Windstorm/33sw0Z1lDE-OjJBK8eCQSw.cspx)

Freeper encourages vote fraud (more Freeper Madness)

Americans from all corners of the political spectrum have invited like-minded citizens to move to their communities. Usually these solicitations are within the law, as they don't encourage participants to vote more than once.

But now some brainiac on right-wing online hatefest Free Republic is borrowing a track from the Ann Coulter playlist by encouraging other readers to commit vote fraud outright by voting in the wrong states. Not only that, but this poster condoned casting multiple votes.

The Freeper's rant reads in part:

"... I suggest that we all get 'smart' and start registering in several states. Select primarily 'blue' states ...

"Then vote two to three times in 2012. Don't feel bad about it ...

"Worried about jail time? Ask who gets convicted. There just aren't that many that go to jail ..."

This is as bad as that obsessed galoot on the Internet a few years back who boasted publicly about sending money to employees of my local courthouse in the hopes of winning a favorable ruling in a potential lawsuit.

It's bad enough to break vote fraud or bribery laws, but bragging about it in plain sight is thoroughly obnoxious.

Free Republic has a history of being associated with illegal activity, so authorities probably already know about the latest meltdown there and will keep an eye on any strange election results. I believe it was in 2004 that a Freeper boasted about intimidating another voter at the polling place until that voter left. You do realize there are laws against voter intimidation, don't you?

Well, damn

The worst economy in 75 years. A broken health care system. Workers' rights trampled daily.

And South Carolina lawmakers are worried about...cussing.

No shit, fuckfaces.

A new bill by State Sen. Robert Ford would make it a felony in South Carolina to use profanity - anywhere. It would make it punishable by 5 years in prison and a $5,000 fine to "publish orally or in writing, exhibit, or otherwise make available material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature."

Not only is this an outright affront to the First Amendment and the Palmetto State's own constitution. It also raises questions of why America's elected officials waste time on this while there's more important things to worry about.

And Robert Ford is a Democrat??? Now I'm really glad I switched to the Greens. Ford's bill does have Republican supporters, naturally.

If South Carolina is going to outlaw something, they should find something else to outlaw - like Jim DeMint.

Don't think Ford's bill against profanity can't pass (even though it is unconstitutional). Much of the Constitution is already ignored outright, so is there any incentive for it to stop?

The good news though is that no bill that Robert Ford has introduced in his 17-year legislative career has ever passed. So he's not exactly Mr. Effective.

(Source: http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/14/1522214)

Dream, dream, dream...

Ah, dreams!

Like the recurring dreams about high school that peaked several years ago, it's time for me to interpret more of what lurks just below my conscience.

Last night, I had 2 weird dreams. During the first, I biked up Cincinnati's Mill Creek valley and went home through downtown. But the trail on the east side of downtown had a new barricade near the Purple People Bridge. The barrier was taller than I was, but I found a way over it.

Crews approved of my breaching of this ill-placed obstacle.

The moral of this dream: Violate more Allowed Clouds.

The second dream involved a distant, unnamed relative encouraging me to go to church for Christmas, Easter, or some other holiday. When we were filing into the pews, I needed to go to the bathroom or take care of some other business.

I headed back towards the lobby, but when I got there, an unidentified gent grabbed me by the ear, accused me of trying to leave church, and dragged me back to the pews - in front of the entire congregation.

It occurred to me that I had been kidnapped.

The lesson here: Avoid any church that might have wingnut adherents who try to keep people from exercising their right to leave.

Luckily, I wasn't rousted out of bed at 6 AM by harassing phone calls to spoil these instructive dreams (which has happened countless times before).

Actor Ricardo Montalban dies

Another death of an entertainment celebrity: Mexican-born actor Ricardo Montalban died today at the age of 88.

You might remember Montalban from 'Fantasy Island' - or perhaps from his commercials for the Chrysler Cordoba of the '70s.

Oddly, I just saw one of his old Cordoba ads on YouTube the other day - ads that I recall from my childhood.

Meet Wilbur ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Wilbur is cool.

When I was about 5 or 6, references to Wilbur were a surefire way to get laughs in my household. Contrary to popular belief, this was not because of the pig in 'Charlotte's Web'. Nor was it because of the Care-Free gum ad with Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Rather, it was because Wilbur was an obscure animated character on 'Sesame Street'.

Wilbur was so obscure in fact that this segment (which aired in the '70s) may have been his only one:



That Wilbur is one studly dude, isn't he?

For quite some time, Wilbur received many tributes from me and my family members.

For instance, a cat food commercial that frequently aired around 1980 and featured a woman saying "Fresh!" in a singsong voice as the package ripped open was once mocked by replacing "Fresh!" with "Wilbur!"

There was also a jingle for IGA supermarkets that intoned, "You're what's special at IGA." Our parody went, "Wilbur's what's special at IGA." (Or - if we were all in the mood for a non-Wilbur spoof - we'd go, "You're what stinks at IGA.")

By that time, I had long since disassociated Wilbur from 'Sesame Street'. I had the image of Wilbur's cartoon sketch in my mind, but I no longer linked it with any particular show.

Wilbur was special not just at IGA, but everywhere else too. He holds a special place in the hearts and minds of many.

Georgia may require prescription for over-the-counter drug

Over-the-counter means you're supposed to be able to get a drug sort of like, uh, over the counter.

In the Legislative Crap-Up for the state of Georgia, however, woes loom. Right-wing State Sen. John Douglas (R, naturally) is introducing a bill to require a prescription for over-the-counter cold and allergy medicine that contains pseudoephedrine. He provided the typical drug warrior excuse.

Uh, John? These aren't prescription drugs. These are over-the-counter.

Georgia wouldn't be alone, after Oregon passed a similar law. (Mexico recently outlawed these over-the-counter drugs completely after pressure from Bush.)

Some drugs are prescription drugs. But this concept wasn't invented to combat secondary abuses of a drug (despite Douglas's excuse). Further, in the U.S., the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act defines what drugs are by prescription. Georgia and Oregon don't get to decide that this law doesn't apply.

Meanwhile, the Peachtree State is also about to face new limits on workers' rights to form unions, at the hands of other proposed legislation that's sailing through.

(Source: http://newmedia.covnews.com/news/article/5419)

Loss of hospital services criticized

Northern Kentucky faces serious threats to access to some services following last year's hospital merger.

The issue centers on the loss of birth control services after the merger. After the area's hospitals merged, they in effect became Catholic hospitals. Previously, St. Elizabeth was a Catholic hospital; St. Luke was not. Following the merger, these hospitals are all now bound by Catholic teachings. Thus, birth control services have been eliminated.

As far as I'm concerned, a church can teach whatever it wants about birth control. The real problem is that local residents (regardless of their own beliefs) are now losing the choices they had before the merger.

As a result, groups including the ACLU are urging Kentucky officials to find a way to make sure the public still has this choice.

Amazingly, some are "outraged by the outrage", as they think nobody should have ever had a choice in the first place.

The larger picture is that as health care facilities all over America are allowed to merge, the public loses services and choices. As long as there is no check on these mergers, people are effectively forced to follow church teachings. Church-state separation has been nearly gutted.

(Source: http://nky.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20090114/NEWS0103/901140369)

Another outside survey for ya!

Cue the Car-X jingle! (That's an inside joke for longtime Last Word fans.)

This time, the online survey about The Big U comes to us from the Vermilion, Ohio, school system.

The school district's superintendent boasts that the survey on uniforms is designed to keep folks from voting more than once. "We've done our best to filter out multiple hits on the site," he bragged.

Well, that's good, because uniform supporters are usually the ones who cast multiple votes.

The stuporintendent also said he was afraid the school system "could get high school kids going on there" to vote against uniforms. However, as long as they voted only once, what's the worry? Students are the ones who would be affected, so shouldn't they be allowed to vote in the survey?

Because uniforms are a nationwide threat to the rule of constitutional law and a worldwide menace to economic justice (as the uniform sweatshop scandal proves), we should all be allowed to vote in this poll, whether we live in that school district or not. So cast your vote here:

http://www.vermilionschools.org/survey/viewer.v

Supremes say erroneous evidence valid

Yet another 5 to 4 ruling - courtesy of the usual Federalist Society culprits.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that evidence found after an arrest based on wrong information from police files can be used against a criminal suspect.

In doing so, the SCrOTUS upheld the conviction of a man on gun and drug charges - after he was arrested on a warrant that had been rescinded months earlier.

The Supreme Court's ruling has in effect gutted longstanding constitutional safeguards against police negligence - safeguards that could only be enforced by disqualifying ill-gained evidence.

This ruling also takes away an incentive for police to make sure they keep accurate records.

I think the Supreme Court needs to start printing its rulings on toilet paper as long as it has such a right-wing majority. More urgently, I think the Obama administration would be justified in implementing court-packing.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/01/14/washington/AP-Scotus-Evidence.html)

Possession of a legal drug now illegal?

I could be missing something here, but somehow it doesn't look that way.

Near the Michigan/Indiana border, 3 people - ages 46 to 53 - have now been busted for possession of pseudoephedrine.

The drug they had was just a few boxes of over-the-counter sinus medicine they got from pharmacies.

I could be wrong, but there's no indication from the article I've seen that suggests they did anything with the drug other than legally buy it. Nothing in the article indicates they intended to use it for anything other than its legal purpose. Nothing indicates that they crushed the pills up or resold them.

Since when can you be arrested for merely possessing an over-the-counter drug?

Despite all this, police in Michigan promptly seized their car and money. No trial, of course.

The 3 "suspects" were caught when a drugstore noted that they didn't live in the area. Actually they do live in the area. They live in the same county as the store, in fact.

Looks like there may be 3 more innocent victims of America's draconian drug laws.

(Source: http://www.nilesstar.com/articles/2009/01/14/news/ndnews6.txt)

Kids accused of truancy entitled to lawyers

Because truancy is considered such a high crime these days, anyone who has even a basic understanding of the Constitution should be able to see that a minor accused of truancy is entitled to a lawyer if their case goes to court.

But apparently it's taken until now for any American state to declare that this is so.

An appeals court in the state of Washington ruled on Monday that young people accused of truancy are entitled to an attorney even at their first court hearing.

The tragedy is that it took until 2009 to decide this - and that other states aren't following the Evergreen State's lead.

Am I correct in assuming that truancy may carry a punishment imposed by courts? State law in Washington says minors with a certain number of unexcused absences may be ordered to appear in juvenile court, so it's clear that the state considers truancy not just a $100 'Judge Judy' lawsuit but a punishable offense.

It's unclear how authorities in Washington will respond to this ruling. Kentucky's response would probably be to raise the age of majority to 80 (even though that wouldn't prevent minors from being entitled to lawyers).

A commentary about my home state that I haven't been able to fit anywhere else: Kentucky law clearly says truants may not be sent to juvenile detention or any other confinement facility. That is because truancy is a status offense, and status offenses in Kentucky are not legally punishable in this manner. However, judges ignore the law and send truants to detention anyway.

Judges who ignore this law do so because they hate children. Many citizens have told me how these jurists conduct themselves and have witnessed their hostile attitudes towards young people.

There is a reason children are not supposed to be locked up for truancy, and that is to protect them and to find positive solutions. When a judge ignores a law that protects children, it is not a good testament to the court's fairness.

The Washington ruling follows one in Kansas last year that correctly declared that juveniles accused of crimes have a constitutional right to a jury trial. This reversed an old ruling to the contrary.

The Constitution is very clear on this matter: If someone is accused of a crime, they have a right to a jury trial. The Constitution places no age restrictions on this right.

Despite these rulings, there's still work to be done. With the failed "lock 'em up" trend of recent years, our work is cut out for us.

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hUiKBoTI7AKovMj1e1Sz8ORlAztgD95M92300)

War coverage blocked

You can say what you want about Al Jazeera, but it's had far more accurate Iraq War coverage than the major American media has.

Despite this, the only American communities where the English-language version of Al Jazeera is carried by local cable providers are Washington, D.C.; Toledo, Ohio; and Burlington, Vermont. Burlington's case is interesting because the city resisted calls by out-of-town censors to drop the channel. Meanwhile, I don't know of a single American cable company that doesn't carry Fox News Channel. (Gee, no bias there.)

This despite the fact that Al Jazeera's English-language service blankets over 100 other countries.

Al Jazeera's Gaza war coverage has also been acclaimed by observers for its accuracy and depth. It's one of few news organizations that reports on the war's civilian deaths at all.

But America's blackout of Al Jazeera continues - years after Al Jazeera's straightforward coverage of the Iraq War earned it condemnation by the Bush royal family and members of the Bush regime. In fact, the blackout had been urged by the Bush White House in the first place.

I know some chickenhawk is going to call me something really mean like an "unpatriotic patriotic bubble blower" (like that one clod who e-mailed The Last Word called me), but I guess that's the price I pay for not thinking the major American media has been trustworthy regarding recent wars.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/business/media/12jazeera.html)

Warning! Censoring video games hazardous to the Constitution!

Warning! Warning! Warning! Censorship of video games may be hazardous to the health of the First Amendment!

But Rep. Joe Baca (D-California) - as is typical among the right-wing DLC - never learns.

Because Joe Baca doesn't know how to play video games, all Baca has talked about for years is video games ruining the purity of our minds. Instead of taking up causes people give a shit about, like the economy (like a real Democrat would have done), Baca created the Congressional Sex and Violence in the Media Caucus and lapsed instantly into Allowed Cloud mode.

As long ago as 2002, Baca wanted to make it a federal crime to sell to teenagers video games that show "violence" or "drug use." Baca's right-wing bill was clearly unconstitutional, of course.

In 2004 - after courts had repeatedly ruled that video games are protected as free speech - Baca introduced a bill that was nearly identical to his effort that had failed 2 years earlier.

In 2005, Baca and other far-right politicians pressured retailers into yanking the best-selling Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and Circuit City (being the obedient little children they are) promptly complied. Worse, the maker of the game modified their product.

And people say there's no government censorship in America?

Baca then demanded a law requiring the Federal Trade Commission to investigate to see whether the video game rating system (which was supposed to be voluntary) was stringent enough.

Government censorship of a Grand Theft Auto game wasn't enough to appease Joe Baca though. So now he's at it yet again! Not exactly the behavior of a winner, huh?

Baca has now introduced a bill to require video games to carry health warnings. I swear I am not making this up.

In a press release, Baca falsely claimed that "research continues to show a proven link between playing violent games and increased aggression in young people."

What "research", Joe? And don't cite Focus on the Family either - especially after that organization's cult-like meltdown on one of the TV talk shows. According to Kenneth Wesley of the Examiner, "There hasn't been a proven case or study that playing a game will lead to more aggression."

Credible researchers have shown that the facts are actually the exact opposite of what Baca claims: Video game violence actually reduces real-life violence. It's one of the first things I learned when I studied mass media in college.

But we don't exactly expect a staunch Patriot Act backer like Joe Baca to get his facts straight.

(Source: http://www.examiner.com/x-856-LA-Video-Game-Examiner~y2009m1d12-Congressman-Baca-wants-health-warinings-on-video-games)

The way the inauguration ought to be

Since we're on the topic of the presidential inauguration, I want to regale you with something that I'd just absolutely love to see - but there's not a chance in hell it will happen.

When Gerald Ford took the Oath of Office, he said, "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over."

No truer words were ever spoken - unless Barack Obama speaks them again during his inaugural speech. And you know he won't. But it would be downright uproarious if he did!

Apparently it's a tradition for the outgoing President to sit behind the new Commander-in-Chief during the inaugural speech. So here's what I'd love to see: During his speech, I want to see Obama say, "Our long national nightmare is over."

And then I want to see him turn around, look at Bush, and say, "Isn't that right, George?"

If Bush couldn't be impeached in 8 years, he can at least be humiliated in front of the entire country.

Again, I don't expect this to happen. And even if it did, nothing is worth the past 8 years of horror. But it would be a moment to savor.

Commuter Clot looms?

It's cold, and the Peace Bike is growing restless.

But I've just discovered something. Look, Care-Free gum gives you 32% - wait, that's not what I've discovered. I've found out that Cincinnati is the site of something called Critical Mass.

Other cities around the world have had Critical Mass for years. The event was founded by bicyclists as Commuter Clot to push for better cycling amenities. All you have to do to participate is show up with a bike and follow other cyclists as they ride around town. Not a damn thing illegal about it, and it's certainly no more dangerous than biking around town alone.

Someone in a chat room who lives in this part of the country told me that Cincinnati has Critical Mass now. In fact, Cincinnati has had it for a while, but the media has covered it up. In other cities, authorities have actively suppressed Critical Mass - but Critical Mass is not illegal.

All the Peace Bike needs to do is show up and follow along! Can anyone think of a good reason not to? It's on public roads, so the Peace Bike is certainly allowed to.

I've learned that Critical Mass takes place on the final Friday of each and every month. It gets under way at 5:30 PM on Fountain Square, and the velocipedes leave the square at 6 PM.

The next Critical Mass is January 30, but I can't imagine having good enough weather for it. Even so, I might just show up anyway.

The right-wing CCCDC has posted an Allowed Cloud against bikes on Fountain Square, but fuck that. Because it's a public space, the CCCDC has no legal right to ban bikes - so I have no intent to follow this diktat.

Why would I participate in Critical Mass? Because the advantages of bicycle commuting need to be highlighted for working-class America. Biking is a great working-class activity - especially because the insurance racket has made driving so expensive, and if there's more gasoline price-gouging like there was last year.

Personally, however, I think Commuter Clot is a much better and edgier name.

Here's the MyBaste page for Cincinnati's Critical Mass:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=156267820

Inauguration memories

We've got 7 days left to impeach ol' Dumps. Just 7.

Not 7 years. Not 7 months. Just 7 days. Only 7.

Today is a slow news day though, so as the bloated Bush diaper gets ready to mosey out the door, let me regale you with memories of past presidential inaugurations.

In 1985, President Reagan staged an elaborate coronation ceremony to kick off his second term. And believe me, it was a coronation. I was in 6th grade, and even though I wasn't old enough to vote, my school stopped little short of telling you who to support in that election.

That inauguration was known for Rappin' Ronnie's runny nose and his wife Nancy reacting with the same horrified pose later used by Macaulay Culkin on 'Home Alone' posters.

Who could forget Mad Dog Bush's 1989 inauguration? That's the one in which a strong gust blew the goofy blue hat off Marilyn Quayle's head, prompting Bush to say, "The new breeze blows!"

Then there was President Clinton in 1993. During ol' Bill's inauguration speech, Mad Dog had to sit behind him and appeared ready to cry because he had lost the election.

Fast forward to 2005, when Dumbya had a Reaganesque ceremony for his second term. This may well be the most memorable inauguration of all.

All the networks televised the inaugural luncheon with gushing praise upon the Decider. This event was held in the ornate National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol. At the end of the luncheon, Trent "Sheets" Lott was speaking at a podium, and he was presenting a painting to the Bushes. During Lott's speech, the sound of a loud fart could clearly be heard.

The Mississippi Hair Helmet then led the Bushes to a set of crystal lanterns that Congress had gifted to the First Family. As George, Laura, and other peeps gathered around these fine works to admire them, more loud and proud bunker blasts were repeatedly detected.

When Lott returned the podium, the audio of more flatulence was clearly picked up.

It's unknown who kept farting during Bush's luncheon, but I'd almost dance naked in James Taylor Park with gum stuck between my teeth just to get a YouTube clip of that!

Latest wingnut delusion is for those who think dumb

If Pepsi's slogan is "For those who think young", the wingnutosphere's motto ought to be "For those who think dumb." Or better yet, "For those who don't think at all."

The Freepers' latest delusion is that Pepsi's new logo is based on that of the Obama campaign and that Pepsi is biased in favor of Obama. CNN actually ran an entire segment this morning to feed this fantasy.

Never mind that Pepsi's new logo doesn't look any more like Obama's than any other logo that Pepsi has used since World War II - when it introduced the red, white, and blue swirls inside a circle. In fact, it doesn't look much like it at all.

This is on par with conservatives' claim that the NBC peacock's left-facing profile was a tribute to liberal politics - a claim that resulted in NBC modifying the bird's beak to face right. (The same occurred with the stylized human profile that serves as PBS's logo.)

Do conservatives truly believe that corporations have favored more liberal politicians and causes? Any objective examination proves Corporate America in general to be on the political right - especially measured by which parties and candidates they gave campaign cash to.

I can think of one corporate logo right off the bat that was almost certainly designed to favor a right-wing candidate: Wal-Mart. From around 2000 at least through 2004, Wal-Mart usually employed a logo that bore a striking similarity to Bush's campaign signs.

I noticed the resemblance immediately. The retail giant had previously been using a similar logo that used the opposite color scheme, but when the colors were changed, there was little doubt that Bush's logo influenced this modification.

Also, Pepsi's new logo didn't appear until after the election. Wal-Mart's Bush-inspired logo was on display prominently during the 2000 and 2004 campaigns. (It still reminds me of the many frustrations of the era.)

It's also telling that Wal-Mart introduced a completely different logo when the wheels were falling off the once-unstoppable Bush wagon - not because they opposed Bush (which they don't), but because they knew how much their old logo was associated with Bush's failures.

It's a shame John McCain had to ruin a good font by using it for his logo.

Palin cultists cry to FCC over Letterman joke

After failed vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin built up a nationwide following among the Far Right, her cultists are now showing themselves to be every bit the thin-skinned Nazis that Bush's followers were.

Over 500 members of Team Sarah, a Failin' Palin fan club, have now complained to the FCC about a joke that David Letterman reportedly made about the embattled Alaska guv.

Team Sarah now claims they're "hearing" that the FCC is indeed investigating Letterman's quip. Nice to know the FCC is prioritizing things, isn't it?

It's unclear exactly what joke they're referring to, as Letterman has always had quite a few chuckles at politicians' expense. As this is over-the-air network TV we're talking about, how offensive could the joke possibly have been?

This is on par with when the wingnuts complained to federal regulators about CBS allegedly giving an in-kind contribution to John Kerry's 2004 campaign all because the network reported a negative story about Bush. (Yes, this is the same CBS that at the time was removing perceived criticism of Bush's policies from awards shows.)

Team Sarah remains undeterred. Now It's trotting out pieces from the disreputable Washington Times to bolster its own paranoid ravings about how they're being "infiltrated."

(Source: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/tundra-talk/1-talk-of-the-tundra/542-team-sarah-complains-to-fcc-about-lettermans-palin-joke.html)

Israel bans Arab parties

Today, Israel banned Arab political parties from running in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

A legislator called this move racist. And it is. I hate to say it, but the move was clearly motivated by ethnic bias.

The country's election committee said some members of these parties had traveled to countries like Syria and Lebanon that oppose Israel. But some Republicans have traveled to countries that oppose America, and the GOP isn't banned from the next American election.

The more important point is that Israel's Supreme Court has already ruled against banning parties on the basis of the parties' dominant ethnic group. However, the Israeli government lately has often ignored its own Supreme Court's rulings.

The ban of Israel's Arab parties was proposed by far-right parties on the election committee.

This is the type of "democracy" the United States is supporting? The undemocratic discrimination has become so bad in Israel that you'd almost think P.W. Botha was running things.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090112/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_arabs_1)

Power company wants customers to pay for blackout

You can't make this stuff up, ladies and gents. This is yet another entry that shows how regulators rubber-stamp every demand by monopolies, no matter how irrational.

Just after the infamous Blackout of '08 that afflicted Cincinnati and northern Kentucky during a dry wind, Duke Energy - which has a monopoly on electric service in the region - asked for yet another rate increase. The audacity of the demand shocked consumers, especially because Duke took over a week to restore power in some areas (especially in poorer neighborhoods).

But now - in both Ohio and Kentucky - Duke wants to increase rates on consumers specifically to pay for the blackout. Duke does this by creating a separate account to track costs they claim they suffered.

Costs they claim they suffered? What about the costs everyone else suffered? Every urban area in modern America (including Cincinnati) bases most of its economy on having electricity. What about the costs to small businesses, public and nonprofit agencies, workers, and families?

Even if Duke didn't cause the blackout or the delay in remedying it, why does the company think we should pay for it? We weren't using power, because Duke wasn't delivering power (regardless of whether this was Duke's fault). We're supposed to pay for a product that wasn't even available?

That's like if a bubble gum manufacturer made everyone who was born before 1928 pay them a hefty sum for being around before bubble gum was invented and depriving them of revenue for a product that didn't exist.

And whose fault was the week-plus delay in restoring power? Duke Energy has nobody to blame but itself for that.

To sum up, Duke took many days to restore power, costing the public an untold sum, and now Duke wants to make the public pay more to cover the business Duke didn't get because of its own delay! In other words, people are going to be paying more for a complete lack of service.

In Kentucky, utilities are supposed to follow a regulatory procedure before raising rates. But I saw nothing in the media about this Duke demand until after the public comment phase had already closed. Because of this, you can already hear regulators' rubber stamp whistling through the air, and it's about to land with a painful thud.

Such is life in corporatist America, I guess.

(Source: http://www.wcpo.com/news/local/story/Separate-Account-Allows-Duke-Energy-To-Track/UrPNtCX5-0upPCG5Fu1jxA.cspx)

New vote fraud allegations loom over Coulter

When right-wing agitator Ann Coulter faced accusations that she illegally voted in Florida, her defense was that she lived in New York - even though that sounds more like an admission than a defense.

Corrupt Florida election officials sat on the case for several years just so the statute of limitations would run out.

But now the New York Daily News reports that Coulter voted by absentee ballot in Connecticut in 2002 and 2004 - even though she lived in New York at that time as well. Records show that Coulter lived in a swanky Manhattan apartment and was sued for allegedly stiffing her landlord out of over $11,000 in rent. This happened in the same year that Coulter purchased a $1,500,000 Manhattan condo.

The Nutmeg State will begin an official investigation of Ann Coulter as soon as it receives a sworn complaint. And the Daily News says there's more than enough people to file such a complaint - especially after Coulter, 47, called 9/11 widows "harpies and witches."

With Fox News sporting a big boner about alleging voter fraud by everyone else (all because their candidate lost), the network needs to investigate Coulter as well.

(Source: http://www.newshounds.us/2009/01/11/ann_coulter_faces_new_voter_fraud_allegations.php;
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/01/11/2009-01-11_ann_coulter_addresses_voting_issue.html)

Man bills phone company for wasting his time

Good. This is what I need to start doing.

There's a guy who runs a small public relations business in upstate New York who wasn't too pleased with his phone service - and rightly so.

The phone company was so unreliable that the man had to borrow a phone from his landlord and have employees use cell phones - racking up thousands of dollars in extra expenses. The phone company kept promising they'd fix the problem, but it dragged on with no remedy in sight.

So he decided to bill the phone company for over $5,000 he lost.

And guess what? After a local newspaper covered the fiasco, the phone company actually paid up!

And why shouldn't it? If you've ever had to call the customer service lines for phone and other utilities, you wouldn't believe how long they put you on hold sometimes. And often you get disconnected because of the phone company's shoddy service and have to call again and repeat the cycle anew.

I remember how a few years ago, my phone service was out for days because the phone company wouldn't fix a line outside my building. When I needed to call anyone, I had to go 5 blocks down the street to find a pay phone - and all the pay phone did was play a voice that kept saying "Error 6" and eat my coins.

I need to bill the phone company for my time it's wasted on all those harassing calls I've been getting, which the phone company won't do anything about.

(Source: http://tags.consumerist.com/5127559/customer-bills-phone-company-for-time-wasted-gets-paid)

Iraqi government makes reporters sign "code of conduct"

But they're freeeeeeeeeeeeeee lolololololololololol!

Journalism in America is hamstrung by corporate diktats such as those that amplify right-wing government and corporate propaganda. So why should we be surprised that the Bush-installed government of Iraq also tries to stifle journalistic freedom?

The Iraqi government now wants to require Iraqi and foreign journalists to sign a "code of conduct" in order to cover provincial elections. Reporters have to agree to these rules to get credentials to attend election-related press conferences. Violators will be fined heavily.

One of the new rules would criminalize "criticizing the work of officials inside the voting centers by making claims without concrete evidence about breaches of the voting process." Not very freedomish, is it?

You know something? Maybe when the Bush regime wrote Iraq's new Constitution, it should have included something about freedom of the press in there.

Sounds like more of that "democracy on the march", huh, George.

(Source: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003929139)

Soldiers punished for having PTSD

Armchair chickenhawks in the government always conceal a knife in one hand with which to stab America's brave fighting men and women.

Soldiers who served gallantly in the Iraq War are now being labeled and punished because they have post-traumatic stress disorder.

Last year, troops diagnosed with PTSD were being forced out of the ranks because the military falsely claimed they had "personality disorders." The Defense Department changed its policy on that following intense criticism. But now the military has found a way around that by wrongly accusing PTSD victims of a "pattern of misconduct" - and forcing soldiers with PTSD to pay back their reenlistment bonuses.

The backstabbing never ends, does it?

Instead of trying to punish cities for having antiwar politics, our public officials need to urge the military to clear these soldiers' names and restore the bonuses that were stolen from them.

America's prisons still contain Vietnam vets with PTSD who have been locked up for 40 years, because the government wouldn't provide them the care and love they needed. Unfortunately, it looks like history is going to repeat itself.

(Source: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/01/military_ptsd_discharge_010709w)

Reversing radio's ruin ('Pail Poll)

Our first 'Pail Poll of 2009 is now closed, and it asked whether you will violate more Allowed Clouds in the new year.

In this poll, 11 of you said you would violate more Allowed Clouds. Only 2 of you said you'd violate fewer. Oh well. To those 2 people, I guess it's their loss.

Because there's a consensus that the radio airwaves are public property, this week's 'Pail Poll provides 2 strong options on how to restore some sanity to the broadcasting biz.

The options are: 1) By bipping. 2) By stinking. Just joking! Actually the options are: 1) By restoring ownership caps that existed into the '90s. Thus, companies would be limited to owning a certain number of stations in a given market, thereby ensuring a diversity of voices. 2) By reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, under which stations would have to present both sides of controversial issues.

There's merit in both of these options, but you have to prioritize. So vote in this 'Pail Poll now!

Guards at "treatment" center murder teen

Another young person is dead - and a family is looking for answers.

Last month, at a "treatment" center in Parma, Ohio, a 17-year-old girl died when the guards brutalized her. The incident happened at Parmadale Family Services, a center run by Catholic Charities. The teenager choked to death on her own vomit while being restrained.

She had been placed in the center by Summit County Children Services under the catch-all pretext of "unruly behavior." After her death, however, the county stopped sending teens to Parmadale.

The coroner's office has ruled the death a homicide, but said, "Nothing sinister is being implied in this ruling." I'm sorry, but if guards at a facility like this choke someone to death while restraining them, that's an open-and-shut case of murder. End of story.

Charges have not yet been filed, and - judging by Ohio's weak record of dealing with abusive conduct in programs - there's no guarantee they ever will be.

This death is yet another reason why we need tougher laws to regulate programs and limit or abolish the use of restraint methods.

(Source: http://www.ohio.com/news/37130929.html)

School sued over strip search

Schools never fucking learn, do they?

A high school in Chicago is now facing a lawsuit because an off-duty policewoman working as a guard there reportedly strip-searched 3 students on orders of the principal. The school had accused the 3 girls of being in possession of a lighter that was used to torch a boys' restroom. (The suit is being filed by the parents of 2 of the girls.)

How could 3 students be in possession of the same lighter at the same time?

And why the shit do our schools need guards now? I graduated from an inner-city high school in 1992, and we didn't have guards and metal detectors (despite the media's absurd claim that the crime rate was higher then). Did America lose a - ah, never mind.

Even if the cop found a lighter, how do they know it's the same lighter that started the fire? Do schools these days think they're as omniscient as they are omnipotent?

How do we know a school official didn't start the fire just to frame the students?

In Illinois, state law doesn't even allow strip searches of adults who are being arrested, except under very limited circumstances. So why would anyone think the law allows strip searches in school? Or is this yet another exhibit in the "rights aren't for kids lololololol" department?

(Source: http://chicagoist.com/2009/01/09/parents_sue_after_kids_allegedly_st.php;
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-strip-search-suitjan09,0,3819818.story;
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/1369282,CST-NWS-aspira09.article)

7 face prison for buying sinus medicine

Here we go again, peeps.

The Patriot Act has once again opted to cake itself all over the nation's face. In eastern Iowa, 7 people now face a year in prison and a $1,500 fine for the "crime" of buying too much cold or allergy medicine - under an unconstitutional Iowa law similar to that which was incorporated into the Patriot Act renewal.

The legal limit is only 7.5 grams in a 30-day period.

Do they even make boxes of medicine that are as small as 7.5 grams?

Notice also that authorities tried to make it sound like a colossal amount of the drug by describing it as 7,500 milligrams instead of 7.5 grams.

Seven more inmates in an already crowded prison system (despite being probably innocent of illicit drug involvement). Seven more lives destroyed. Seven more drug war statistics.

(Source: http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=229090)

Open thread

Feels slickery!

I know you're still rolling on the floor over the Doublemint laughing gas, but I just made an even more long-awaited commercial discovery that has absolutely nothing to do with gum!

This is almost too good to be true, but here it comes...

I remember how in the '80s there was an ad for N'Ice throat lozenges in which a man who was playing cards with his wife got angry and threw his cards down because he had a sore throat.

For the record, N'Ice lozenges didn't work worth a damn. I don't know anyone foolish enough to think they did. I haven't seen N'Ice in years, but I'm assuming that's not because they didn't work - because products are more likely to be discontinued if they work.

When I discovered YouTube, this N'Ice commersh was the very first thing I searched for. I looked for the ad almost every day for the next 3 years, and I was just about ready to give up.

But now I'm glad I didn't! Someone has now posted on YouPube a CBS news brief from 1986. The description says it includes a "mini-commercial for N'Ice." This was another "Could it be?!" moment for me, and my blood started racing!

After the 30-second report about Tip O'Neill's retirement, there it was: my N'Ice commersh that was lost for years!

I'm assuming N'Ice no longer exists, so I have no objection to posting the clip (complete with the news brief) here:



"Don't lose your cool!" What do you expect him to do? Jump for joy because he has a sore throat?

And yes, the actor's resemblance to right-wing activist Gary Bauer has been noted.

Double your laughter at this ad! (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Man, am I glad to find this one!

I'm so excited about this find that I'm not even going to wait until Saturday like I usually do with this feature! (I also didn't want to wait until after someone got the clip pulled because gum hurt their feelings.)

I had a hard time locating this Doublemint gum commersh on YouTube because I couldn't remember anything it actually said. All I remembered is that the actors appeared against a white background. But when I accidentally found a link on YouTube featuring a still from the ad, I excitedly asked myself, "Could it be?!"

Well, they got the year right: 1994. I knew it aired in late 1994 because I was a junior in college, and I was required to take a literature class (which had nothing to do with my major) that was frankly impossible to pass. To voice my frustration, one of my term papers made reference to (in my approximate words):

"The guy in the Doublemint commercial who chews a piece of gum and makes a funny face."

Yes, I tried using that as a complete sentence - even though it isn't.

(Coincidentally, this was the same semester that the "Burn gum! It melts!" craze began.)

Here's the commersh in question (at long last):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODBK_RzLNl8

The gent I referred to in my term paper is the aging man who appears halfway through the ad.

The man's role in this ad isn't particularly remarkable until after he places the stick of gum in his mouth. But as soon as he puts the gum in, his behavior takes on uproarious changes!

Pre-gum, he is stoic and passionless. But the gum seems to suddenly make him laugh uncontrollably - which is exactly what I did when I saw this preposterous commercial. I distinctly recall watching TV at my mom's house and doubling over in helpless guffawing because of the man's reaction to the gum.

I had no idea Doublemint contained laughing gas before I saw this ad!

Also, does anyone else think the singer in this commersh sounds just like that who sang the old "Thriftway is the place" ads?

Economic stimulus shouldn't stimulate torture racket

Few would argue that economic stimulus is a bad thing - except when it's abused to benefit unsavory organizations.

With economic stimulus in the news lately, we're all going to have to keep a very close eye on where this money goes.

Teen confinement facilities are experienced at begging for (and getting) handouts. If you read about a phony "rehab" cult, an abusive wilderness program, or a teen psychiatric gulag - whether it's nominally nonprofit or not - odds are that it's received a generous government grant at some point.

Our elected representatives of all parties are quite slipshod at dishing out taxpayer money to these fraudsters. Some legislators know that these programs are scams but keep giving them money anyway; others have been indoctrinated with so much programmy propaganda that they refuse to believe that these programs are anything but charitable endeavors.

So we're all going to have to be very careful at watching where congressional earmarks go.

I can almost guarantee you that some of the taxpayers' hard-earned money is going to be earmarked for abusive programs. It's up to all of us to identify these earmarks and make sure they never pass.

Sign laws selectively enforced (imagine that!)

The city of Menlo Park, California, is on the warpath against opponents of antigay legislation in that state.

The city has been ordering residents to remove anti-Proposition 8 signs from their yards - after someone who was too chickenshit to identify themselves complained about the signs.

Predictably, there are no reports that pro-Prop 8 signs have been targeted. In fact, pro-Prop 8 signs are still plastered all over telephone poles in other California cities.

I understand the reasons for laws to keep election signs from cluttering public spaces after the election - but these are private homes, not public spaces. And the election hasn't even been settled yet, because Prop 8 is undergoing court challenges.

Damon Thayer let his campaign illegally keep his stupid-ass signs up on the public right-of-way long after the election, but anti-Prop 8 signs on private property get taken down while the election is still pending?

None of this would even be an issue now had conservatives not wasted their time and money placing social engineering horseshit on the ballot in the first place - especially after the courts had already ruled on the matter beforehand. It amazes you that with the worst economy in 75 years and with hunger continuing unabated worldwide, they'd squander their resources on this garbage.

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3680916&mesg_id=3680916)

Autoworkers banned from striking

When the automakers got a bailout, it was with the assurance that workers would be protected.

But now it turns out that this - like everything else under Bush - has been a Big Lie.

As a condition of the bailout for General Motors, the United Auto Workers and its local unions are now prohibited from going on strike, even if the need arises.

Let's not deceive ourselves into thinking this isn't a union-busting effort. If a union loses its power to strike, what else is it?

The deal also forces autoworkers to take a pay cut so that they only make as much as workers at nonunion auto plants.

All this after the Senate promised there'd be no pay cut?

How did this bailout even get approved with such a deliberate effort to weaken workers and their union?

The bailout is considered a loan to GM, but what incentive does GM have to pay back this loan, seeing how it requires almost no concessions by GM executives? Is this just a wink-and-nod to GM execs?

This bailout has to be renegotiated.

(Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20090108/BUSINESS01/90108111/As+a+condition+of+loan++UAW+cannot+strike+against+General+Motors)

Yet another school system goes Nazi

Well, I knew where this was headed when the school district threatened to paddle kids if they didn't buy uniforms at Wal-Mart. And now it's official.

The outpost of fascism in question is the Jackson-Madison County Schools in Tennessee.

I guess they think that if the 3 millionaires on the school board said uniforms are just swell, that makes it so. After all, the school board members get to send their kids to other school districts, so they don't have to worry about this sumptuary law applying to them.

(Madison County is a Republican stronghold, not surprisingly.)

(Source: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/jan/09/jackson-madison-county-adopts-school-uniforms;
http://www.jacksonsun.com/article/20090109/NEWS01/901090311/1002)

Media bias doublespeak

Has anyone else noticed the contradiction here?

If the media has such a liberal bias - as conservatives claim - how come conservatives are the ones who are fighting so hard against the Fairness Doctrine? Isn't this an admission that the media actually has a conservative bias?

(Sound of a pin dropping.)

The Fairness Doctrine applied to American airwaves from 1949 to 1987. It said radio and TV stations had to present both sides of controversial issues. Some folks said it restricted editorial freedom, but the Fairness Doctrine was based on the true premise that the airwaves belong to the public.

One of the first things you learn if you study communications in college is that stations are licensed to use the public airwaves based on the "public interest, convenience, and necessity." That credo loomed large until the government's gimme to the corporate media in the '90s.

Now Republicans have introduced a bill to bar Congress, the President, or the FCC from reviving the Fairness Doctrine. Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine isn't an utmost priority for me, because right-wing media bias doesn't just take the form of avowed conservatives on talk radio but also a web of lies spun by news outlets that claim to be neutral. The Fairness Doctrine would do little to stem the latter (although the FCC used to crack down on stations that deliberately distorted news).

The Republicans' action though is based on numerous flawed premises. (Imagine that!) For one, they complain that the Fairness Doctrine would put talk radio out of business - which is practically an admission that talk-shit radio has a right-wing bias.

Further, it indicates that they never took broadcasting or journalism in college. If they did, they weren't paying attention and were probably just shooting spitwads the whole time. If they gained anything from class, they'd know the airwaves are a public trust with limited space, so licensees have to act in the public interest.

They also don't know a damn thing about separation of powers or why we elect representatives in the first place.

But that doesn't stop the right-wing hypocrisy. In cosponsoring the bill to block the Fairness Doctrine, Sen. Jim "I'm A Loon" DeMint (R-South Carolina) cried, "Freedom of speech is under attack in this country." Yes it is, Jim - by you. DeMint is the asswipe who wanted to deprive the city of Berkeley of its freedom of speech and defund all its services because of its politics.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Indiana) whimpered, "Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine today would amount to government control over political views expressed on the airwaves." As if the 1996 telcom law that the Republicans supported doesn't? The '96 law has effectively subsidized corporate interests to amplify the right-wing noise machine's propaganda.

When weighing this issue, you have to remember that these are the guys who actually think the 1996 Telecommunications Act was good.

Felon illegally voted Republican

Voter fraud, voter fraud, voter fraud, lololololololololololz!

In Minnesota, convicted felons aren't allowed to vote if they're still on supervised release. (Ooh, an Allowed Cloud!) That's the law. This blog doesn't get to decide what laws apply, and what laws don't.

So let's introduce you to a clod named Eric Willems. Willems did prison time recently for a felony conviction of having sex with a 15-year-old girl. His supervised release doesn't run out for a couple more years.

And Willems is a big Republican. And he's a staunch supporter of John McCain and Norm Coleman. He couldn't wait to vote for the Republican ticket.

So he did. Even though he wasn't allowed to vote. And his vote was counted.

He knew he wasn't permitted to vote. He admitted that when he was released from prison, he was told he couldn't vote.

In the Gopher State, voting illegally (as Willems did) is also a felony. Oops. You're busted, Eric.

Sounds like a future Republican senator himself, doesn't he?

(Source: http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=534999&catid=2)

Blogs hacked over political views

In conservaland, merely mocking their absurd yellow journalism is considered an assault on their free speech (as I now know). But they can illegally hack all the blogs they want, and that's considered "art."

Now right-wing hackers have taken down a ring of influential progressive blogs. Given the weak intellect that seems to dominate the right wing lately, that might seem hard for them to accomplish - but you also have to consider that this is their job. These hackers spend their days on electronic terrorism like this. And you know damn well people in high places hire them to do it.

I know this, because that's how my computer got fried in 2003. They were targeting e-mail lists then, and they sent the Swen virus to it. And with that old version of Outlook Express that opened e-mail attachments automatically, that wasn't a good combination.

The blogs - which used the Soapblox platform - seemed to have been wiped out forever, but they're back at least for now.

You want to see an assault on free speech? Well, illegally hacking blogs and taking them offline because of their views certainly qualifies.

Maybe now that the adults will be back in charge of the country soon, there can be an investigation into this.

(Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Hackers_take_down_progressive_blogs_0107.html)

Flooding hits Kentucky

Gee, what else is new?

Is the wingnutosphere still going to insist climate change is a hoax by the "big meanies of libism" (as they'd say)?

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/news/commonwealth/story/Heavy-Rain-Causes-Flooding/XzXcshroREybD7d4tJ3D-g.cspx)

Kit Bond retires

Good riddance to this goof!

Longtime Sen. Kit Bond, a right-wing Missouri Republican, has now announced that he's not seeking another term.

Bond, 69, made headlines here with his demagoguery when said that those who dared to oppose Bush's unconstitutional surveillance bill were terrorists.

But soon he'll be gone and in disgrace.

(Source: http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/16399)

Defending myself once again!

Every time I bring up the topic of investigating the media's right-wing bias, I have to defend myself. Every damn time! It's a death-defying life I lead, I'll take my chances.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't want censorship. I want answers.

In my own defense, I'm not alone in this view. For several years now, many other blogs have demanded that the media's promotion of the Iraq invasion be investigated. And I'd agree.

Aren't our lawmakers supposed to represent us? Then again, isn't the media supposed to be looking out for us too?

Following my previous entry, a commenter here accused me of doing the same thing Joe McCarthy did. They never really explained how. But what the media does is truly McCarthyist - especially the story that prompted yesterday's entry.

Investigate the right-wing media?

Just as the 111th Congress limps into session, media bias seems to have become an even graver threat to democracy than we thought.

There are some lone nuts out there with extremist views who say ugly, hateful things in public, and Fox News is actively attempting to ascribe their views to our side. Anyone who knows me knows I don't have such views, but that doesn't stop the Fox liars.

I'm not 100% sure that the hateful, bigoted statement being hyped by Faux News wasn't made by someone who was planted just to make our side look bad. The Far Right has a recent history of such fraud. Just look at the Ashley Todd story, or that maniac in West Virginia who crashed political rallies and faked attacks on himself. And isn't it odd that in the latest story there just happened to be a camera right next to the face of the woman who shouted her vile diatribe?

Fake or not, Fox is wrong either way. The network reported that the disgusting statement was made by "some" of the demonstrators. No, it was not. "Some" is plural. The statement was made by one person. Not "some." So Pox News misled. Or in less polite terms, it lied outright.

Pox News also lied when it said protest organizers refused to condemn the statement. They did condemn it. Can't anyone at Fox fucking read?

If Fox was just being careless and not intentionally trying to manipulate public opinion, I'd say that strongly admonishing the network here would suffice. But this is a pattern for Faux - and other media outlets. Not just on this issue, but also on others. Generally, the bias has been deliberate. So I truly believe it's time Congress opens an investigation into the media's right-wing bias.

I do not look kindly upon being called a bigot because of someone else's repugnant outburst. At all. I've spent my adult life condemning hate and bigotry - not promoting it.

I studied communications in college, and I know that many fine folks become journalists to uphold democratic values and the free flow of facts. But for the media to make up shit to maneuver public opinion is antithetical to democracy - and inexcusable.

The first order of business needs to be to repeal the 1996 Telecommunications Act and restore media ownership caps - at once.

That would be an immense step, but I don't think it would go far enough. I think a congressional investigation of the media's right-wing bias would do much more to frame the issue and discourage the continuation of this plague.

I don't expect Congress to investigate, of course. But there's 50 states, and we have a right to expect the legislature of at least one to take up the cause.

Some in the right-wing noise machine need to be hauled in front of lawmakers to answer some questions. I'm convinced that this is going to be the most effective way to get to the bottom of this pattern of propaganda that's gone on for far, far too long.

Teacher drug tests tossed!

Under a new right-wing policy by the Kanawha County school system in West Virginia, 25% of teachers would have faced a random drug test each year.

But now a federal judge has blocked the new rule - because it's an unconstitutional search.

Good. It's about damn time this horseshit got tossed!

A school board member cried about the teachers' union opposing the drug tests "when they should be holding our hand in unison."

Sounds like the school board is upset because not everyone wants to march in lockstep to their tyranny. And you know that if they don't get their way in court, they'll keep appealing it until they do. It's a hell of a way to squander tax dollars, but school boards aren't known for fiscal responsibility these days.

(Source: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/12/29/216243wvdrugtestlawsuit_ap.html)

Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the letter 'E' ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Does anyone else recognize the voice in this creative animated 'Sesame Street' segment of decades ago?



Listen to it again, folks.

Why, it's Casey Kasem - the king of music countdown shows!

Although the man in the cartoon looks nothing like ol' Casey, his hand gesture when the elephant leaves resembles that which Casey often used on his TV countdown program.

When I was about 10 or 11, one of my big goals in life was to hear Casey Kasem mention 'Sesame Street'. When I discovered that Ernie's "Rubber Duckie" had charted years earlier, shortly after Casey's radio show 'American Top 40' debuted, I figured there might be a glimmer of hope, if any old 'AT40' shows ever appeared in reruns.

But my goal was fulfilled when I least expected it. On 'AT40' one weekend, Casey mentioned that a certain legendary musician had "played in the band on 'Sesame Street'."

And so, my life was complete at long last.

49ers sued over patdowns

The San Francisco 49ers were a team that many football fans in the '80s and '90s loved to hate, but now it appears that the 49ers love to hate their own fans.

Spectators at Candlestick Park are now suing the Niners plumb to court. The lawsuit, which is now before the California Supreme Court, stems from the 49ers enforcing the NFL's idiotic policy of intimately frisking fans.

The patdowns weren't instituted until 2005 and are ineffective. I've boycotted even watching NFL games on TV since then, because of this policy. A federal judge ordered a halt to the searches in Tampa Bay, but an appeals court inexplicably overruled that decision.

In California, however, you'd think the plaintiffs would have better luck, because the state constitution is quite explicit about privacy rights. A 1972 referendum placed limits on corporations violating the right to privacy in this manner.

Despite this, several of the justices don't seem to place a high priority on what the law (which was passed by voters, no less) actually says. One of them complained that overturning the 49ers' frisking policy might upset some fans. Tough shit. This case is supposed to be about the law, not hurt feelings.

With the law in California being as clear as it is, the Niners seem out of luck. But right-wing judicial activism isn't unheard of even in the Golden State, so keep an eye on this case.

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/06/BA23154I01.DTL&tsp=1)

Associate AG pick filed frivolous suits for RIAA

Would Cynthia McKinney appoint Tom Perrelli as associate attorney general? (Here's a hint: No.)

But Perrelli (pictured here in a photo from his law firm's website) is who the country gets, and the choice is rather unsatisfying.

Obama is selecting Perrelli largely because of his experience in the Clinton administration. Unfortunately, Perrelli also has experience in an even more disappointing endeavor: filing frivolous lawsuits on behalf of the RIAA.

Perrelli is a DMCA apologist who was hired by the Recording Industry Association of America in several bogus file-sharing cases - including one that attempted to force an ISP to disclose the names of almost 100 subscribers. All because the RIAA won't even adapt to decade-old technology.

As associate attorney general, Perrelli would oversee important divisions in the Attorney General's office, including...the antitrust division. Does anyone else see the irony here? The right-wing RIAA has a near-monopoly on the recorded music industry, yet its lawyer is going to oversee the government's antitrust division?

Harry Reid keeps bragging about how the Democratic Senate isn't going to be a rubber-stamp for Obama. Apparently, he's threatening not to allow Leon Panetta to be confirmed as CIA head, because Panetta is against torture. I guarantee you though that they'll confirm Tom Perrelli almost hands-down.

(Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10133425-38.html)

Feinstein wants pro-torture CIA head

Although Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California is nominally a Democrat, I've been forced to deal with her right-wing ideas for years. I think it started with her support of Internet censorship in the mid-'90s.

Feinstein also helped ram through the confirmation of Michael Mukasey and continues to support the failed Patriot Act.

Now Feinstein doesn't want Leon Panetta as head of the CIA, because Panetta refuses to support torture. In Panetta's stead, Feinstein wants Stephen Kappes. That's because Kappes apparently hasn't objected to the illegal torture techniques that flourished under his watch.

This is what happens when the Democrats surrender their whole party to the DLC.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/5/214838/3952/811/680589)

Gategate

Bush's shit-caked pantaloons are getting closer and closer to ambling out the door and back to Texas.

But now, as he moves into his Dallas mansion that he's acquired, he's demanding that federal taxpayers buy him a gate to block access to the neighborhood. This despite the fact that the gate would be on a public street.

Aaaww, the widdle baby want a gate?

I sure as shit never had a gate anywhere I lived - let alone one paid for by taxpayers. But Bush has probably never been able to imagine not having one.

Bush's daddy pulled the exact same stunt when he left office, by demanding a gate for his Houston neighborhood. To accomplish this, the Texas legislature passed a law just for him that allows the gating of public roads. All for the pwecious, pwecious Bushes.

You know what? I think Bush should spend his retirement behind a gate - a prison gate!

(Source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-bushhouse_06met.ART0.State.Edition1.4a585c2.html)

Man wins thousands after airline incident

In 2006, a man trying to fly out of New York was arbitrarily barred from a JetBlue flight because of his ethnicity and because he wore a t-shirt that said "We Will Not Be Silent" in English and Arabic.

The event was yet another of many arbitrary incidents like this in recent years.

Now the man has received a $240,000 settlement from JetBlue and the TSA for the harassment he suffered.

Good. It's nice to see Bush's TSA paying for its discrimination. If you keep hitting the TSA and Corporate America in the wallet, maybe someday they'll mend their ways.

The irony is that the airline and the TSA harassed the man partly because of the saying on his shirt. "We Will Not Be Silent" was a slogan of a resistance movement that opposed the regime in Nazi Germany. It was designed to inspire dissent against a corrupt dictatorship.

It speaks volumes about the Bush regime that it gets so up in arms about an anti-Nazi slogan.

(Source: http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-01-05-jetblue-tsa-settlement_N.htm)

Reid caves again

Damn. Talk about a lightweight.

Following Al Franken's victory, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (pictured here) has now caved to Republican sore loser tantrums by deciding not to seat Franken.

Um, are you sure Reid is Majority Leader? Reid's Democrats are in the majority in the Senate now, right? So why are they caving to the Republican loudmouths?

Because that's all Reid has done since he took the Majority Leader post. Every time the GOP turns on the waterworks, Reid caves. In fact, Reid usually caves even before the GOP gets around to whining about something. Man, he's quick!

Harry Reid is little more than a life-sized cardboard cutout of a man. You tap him on the shoulder, and he tumbles to the floor with the smirk on his face intact.

For their part, Republicans had planned to disrupt the Senate's swearing-in ceremony if Franken was seated. How mature.

Minnesota officials have already certified that Franken won. Neither the Republicans nor Harry Reid get to decide that he didn't. It's simply not their decision.

I guess they want to go down in history as not abiding by a legitimate election.

(Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE5045LF20090106)

Using your own property is "squatting" now? (more Freeper Madness)

Look, it's another FReeper FUnny!

Damn, I love making fun of those clods! No major website has had as many users who are as consistently wrong as Free Republic, and they can be funny when they lose.

Did you know that using your own property is "squatting"? It is according to the Freak Rethuglic brain trust.

Mississippi continues to mismanage the Hurricane Katrina aftermath by trying to use zoning as an excuse to force hurricane survivors out of their temporary cottages. Usually these cottages are on residents' own property.

If the EPA forced some big landowner to stop storing barrels of toxic chemicals on their own property, the Freepers would be the first to cry "property rights!" But it's a different story when hurricane victims have to use cottages on their own property until their homes are rebuilt.

Here's what one Freeper said about the hurricane survivors:

"Sorry, no excess compassion for the new 'unqualified homeowners' who never actually contributed to the costs of any of their tents ..."

They never contributed? Then what the hell were they paying taxes for? They paid taxes precisely so the government could function, and they could receive services. If they can't stay in their cottages, then the government should never have charged them taxes.

The Freeper went on to say:

"No squatters rights, IMNSHO."

Go look up 'squatting' in your 'Charlie Brown's 'Cyclopedia', Freeper person. The survivors are living on their own property - so how can it be squatting?

The Freeper caps off with this gem:

"Have we really passed the tipping point in the USA?"

Well, yeah. When right-wing kooks think hurricane victims using their own property is "squatting", I'd say we're long past the tipping point.

Keep entertaining us, conservos.

Born and bread in the U.S.A.

Amidst the education disaster that's unfolding in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, some on the Far Right just can't stand to be proven wrong.

When several of you fine folks from my area rightly challenged the Pottstown thought police on the Pennsylvania station's site, the right-wingers went bugfuck ballistic.

Now listen to the latest incoherent, bigoted response from the Right:

"Well its [sic] obvious 'slayer' and 'cookie monster' are from a god sent town where people are perfect and all kids are angels or just inbread [sic] and are against killing family sense [sic] kentucky is the land of the inbread [sic]. Thankfully for us sane people who care about are [sic] kids who can at times be to [sic] careless to worry about themselves. I think the inbreads [sic] in kentucky need to worry about their own problems and not the problems in PA. Its [sic] funny how the school would find themselves in court if it was your kid but you guys cant [sic] even manage to find your teeth, Unreal."

So people in my state are "inbread" because they don't support school uniforms? That's a new one. What the fuck is "inbread" anyway? I've heard of inbred, but not "inbread."

And since it's a constitutional issue, we will concern ourselves with what goes on in states besides our own. We are expected by a power higher than ourselves to help preserve the Constitution for all future generations - and to defend it from those who'd gut it.

Notice that the fuckchop who attacked Kentucky never actually argued whether uniforms are constitutional - because they don't care. The Constitution means nothing to these exurban security parent types.

Cult founder lives it up

This story wraps up BushAmerica quite accurately: Mel Sembler, an ambassador under both Bush dictators who founded the abusive Straight, Inc. cult, is dining in luxury for the holidays - while a little boy who was injured when a speaker fell on his head at a shopping center run by a Sembler firm is about to be evicted from his home.

In 2007, a 3-year-old boy was permanently injured at the much-maligned Baywalk in St. Petersburg, Florida, when the heavy speaker fell on him. He's still recovering - but his family's house has just been condemned, and it was about to be foreclosed upon anyway.

Sembler, meanwhile, owns a private jet and fleeced the taxpayers by getting Congress to build a $100,000,000 memorial in Rome in his own honor.

Mel, you egotist, can't you lend a helping hand to this child and his family?

(Source: http://itsyourtimes.com/?q=node/4155)

Another fascist school system to avoid

...much like just about any other American school system these days!

This time it's in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.

First, the school district implemented mandatory uniforms (despite being unconstitutional). The school claimed it would prevent violence. However, it was only later that a student got in trouble for plotting to kill schoolmates.

So, because this tyrannical policy failed, the school may now be expanding its tyranny by forbidding opaque backpacks.

It's a vicious cycle that's been played out countless times in recent years: A problem (whether real or perceived) is identified, authoritarian bureaucrats come up with some sweeping new restrictive policy to fight it, the problem worsens under the new policy, so more restrictive policies are proposed. The cycle is never broken.

Even if I lived in that town, I wouldn't let my kids anywhere near that school system.

Naturally, Nazis have flooded the Pennsylvania website to defend the school district's fascism. That's because they're Nazis, I guess, so that's their job.

(Source: http://www.wfmz.com/view/?id=601202)

The human rights court that isn't

The European Union allegedly has a human rights court to protect the rights of the public. But this has turned out to be another misleading name associated with the EU.

Europe's so-called human rights court has now gutted the human rights of 2 Muslim students from France who were expelled from school because they wouldn't remove their headscarves. The court ruled 7 to 0 to throw out the students' case.

Expelling someone from school because of their religion is Europe's idea of human rights now?

I place a strong value on public functions such as schools being strictly secular. But that should not in any way deprive individuals of their right to religious expression - especially because the expression by the students in this case did not infringe on others' rights.

This case is especially vexing because the students were discriminated against: The school only suppressed religious expression by Muslims. Other faiths weren't affected.

The expulsions preceded France's infamous nationwide crackdown against Muslims in schools.

Europe 2009: No country is allowed to have an economic system that isn't based on greed-driven markets, but they're able to practice all the religious discrimination they want.

(Source: http://www.kyivpost.com/world/31637)

You are entering...the Constitution-free zone!

Many of you question whether America still has a Constitution at all, but now it's clear that a significant portion of the country is indeed a Constitution-free zone.

I and most other Americans would never expect absolute privacy at a border crossing - but now the government has changed the definition of what "the border" is, just so it can stop travelers who don't even leave the country. Under this definition, "the border" includes not just the international boundary itself, but everything within 100 miles of it. And the baseline isn't where the real boundary is, but where the closest U.S. land is - thus, much of the Canadian boundary is considered to be along the U.S. shores of the Great Lakes.

In total, "the border" now means everything within 100 miles of the seacoasts or the Great Lakes shorelines or the Canadian or Mexican boundaries. Two-thirds of America's population lives in "the border." Even Cincinnati is surprisingly close to it.

Let's say you take a bus from Columbus to Fort Wayne. It's hardly what I'd call an international jaunt - but according to the federal government, it might as well be: If you take the shortest route, most of the trip is within "the border." So federal agents can board the bus at any point arbitrarily and search you.

If you're driving from Raleigh to Norfolk, this too is within "the border." So the Border Patrol can set up checkpoints to stop you. The same is true if you're biking across Minot just to go to the supermarket.

And the government does conduct searches like this now. Agents board buses and trains traveling within the U.S., search passengers, and even detain them - with no probable cause whatsoever. Often they use drug-sniffing dogs.

It's been going on to some extent for a while, but lately it's vastly increased in scope and invasiveness.

Americans have been stopped just traveling near their own homes - and detained even after showing proof of citizenship. Some have been denied water, and some have found that their belongings were taken.

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

Because of this assault on basic liberty, many Americans (who never leave the country) have obtained passports to make themselves slightly less susceptible when traveling within the country. But I think it's a sad state of affairs when Americans have to carry passports just to travel within their own borders.

(Source: http://www.aclu.org/privacy/37293res20081022.html;
http://www.examiner.com/x-536-Civil-Liberties-Examiner)

Man kicked out of museum over shirt

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is a state-funded museum in the Tar Heel State. But in BushAmerica, the fact that a museum is publicly funded doesn't stop it from spending taxpayer dollars to favor one political view over another.

On Friday, a man visiting the museum's Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit happened to wear a shirt that criticized the right-wing practices of the Israeli government. As a result, he was kicked out of the museum.

The man was a volunteer escort for the elderly who had taken a Holocaust survivor to the museum. The irony of ejecting him from the museum seems to be lost on the museum's thought police.

The museum's excuse for expelling the man was that he lacked a permit to protest in a government building. Uh, what protest? Was he carrying signs? Was the Harangue there to call the cops?

Somehow, I suspect that if the man's shirt had supported the Israeli government's actions, he never would have been kicked out of the place. I have reason to suspect this, because modern America has had a long pattern of stifling some views but not others.

When did America stop having freedom of conscience? (January 20, 1981?)

(Source: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/4242427)

Right-wing lawmaker ran gulag

If you're from Utah, you may have heard of State Sen. D. Chris Buttars, a Republican. You may have even heard of his links to abusive teen gulags. But for the rest of the world, this is a new story.

When Chris Buttars was criticized for a racist remark he made about a year ago, he cried that he was a victim of a "hate lynch mob." This episode occurred a couple years after Buttars's criticism of the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling. The intolerant bigot with a fucked-up face also sponsored a bill to require public schools to teach creationism.

Another Buttars bill would have required students to be taught that sex outside of marriage is "criminal conduct."

It turns out that - unbeknownst to most Americans - Buttars was director of Utah Boys Ranch - now known as West Ridge Academy - for years. This facility claims to "treat" boys and girls between the ages of 9 and 17, but it's actually an abusive gulag. Last year, the facility became the target of a lawsuit accusing it of allowing a detainee to be sexually assaulted. There have also been confirmed cases of physical abuse there.

Not long ago, a report emerged that Chris Buttars himself had personally ordered 2 staffers to rip a 13-year-old's clothes off and shave his head. The victim of this attack described Buttars as "the worst human being I've ever been eye to eye with."

Accounts like this however have been swept under the rug by the media.

Now another account has emerged about Buttars's reign of terror. According to this account, a 15-year-old who was sent to Utah Boys Ranch for the "crime" of not liking church met Buttars. Buttars boasted of his political influence and threatened to have a judge keep him there until he turned 21.

There's more in these and other accounts, but this should at least acquaint you with Buttars's fascism.

Teen gulags like to boast of influence they have with judges. CPH did it too. Why? Because they're run by scuzzballs.

Chris Buttars however recognizes his competition. I'm as against Ritalin as anyone, but Buttars's anti-Ritalin bill seemed like more of an effort to fight a competitor than anything. He apparently thought Big Pharma's forced drugging approach competed too much against Utah Boys Ranch's forced beating approach. In 2004, he supported a bill to permit state regulation of gulags, but that's only because he felt the bill would have a greater effect on facilities that competed with his own.

That bill of course never passed, because it was opposed by the founder of the abusive WWASPS chain, who was a major Republican donor.

I think what it boils down to is: Follow the money.

(Source: http://www.mormongulag.com/;
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/5/8431/61882/90/680293)

Bush regime destroys historic canyon

No matter what your feelings on immigration are, it's hard to see how anyone thinks Bush's latest debacle is a good answer to illegal immigration.

The Bush regime is in the process of filling in a historic canyon near San Diego, complaining that it's used too much as an illegal border crossing. Smugglers Gulch has historic interest for many reasons: It was once used by cattle rustlers, and it features historic Native American sites.

The canyon also has environmental significance: It features endangered fauna that are now threatened by the wrecking ball.

The ruling regime has already leveled nearby hills and shoveled much of the earth from these hills into Smugglers Gulch and Goat Canyon.

And so, the rampant idiocy of the Bush regime never stops, even 2 weeks before he leaves office. I can't wait to see Bush tried like the criminal he is.

(Source: http://www.examiner.com/a-1774868~Historic_border_canyon_near_San_Diego_is_filled_in.html)

Maryland police spying even worse than thought

This is one of these scandals that gets more and more outrageous every time it's reported.

The illegal surveillance by the Maryland Police State Police has now been found to have affected far more innocent people than was previously acknowledged. In addition to labor, antiracist, and antiwar activists, state troopers also monitored People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and organizations that supported establishing bike lanes.

Police labeled all of these organizations as "terrorist", even though none of them had planned or participated in any terrorist activities.

State police also targeted a consumer group that opposed a 72% electricity rate hike. Authorities even lied about an antiwar group by calling it a white supremacist organization - even though the organization had members of all races.

Next thing you know, they'll falsely claim I was racist because I wasn't able to go back in time to prevent someone in a chat room from saying something racist while I was asleep.

The Maryland State Police's playing of the race card is particularly ironic because of their file on human rights group Amnesty International. One of the "crimes" troopers accuse Amnesty International of is "civil rights." So civil rights is a crime now?

The current police superintendent has called the illegal mid-decade spying operation a "waste of resources." The surveillance operation yielded no arrests or evidence of illegal or violent activity. Despite this, nobody in the police department has been disciplined or fired. In fact, one of the troopers involved has been promoted twice.

In BushAmerica, no bad deed goes unrewarded, I guess.

Cincinnati becoming world's bedbug capital

The Bush Who Brings You Bedbugs strikes again.

As America has seen an alarming rise in bedbug infestations under Bush, Cincinnati has been the nerve center of this vile trend. So much so that the Los Angeles Times has even reported on it.

I blackballed the L.A. Times months ago, and I ought to continue to do so, because it tries to blame the DDT ban for the bedbug pandemic - even though DDT was banned decades before the current rise of bedbugs started. But make no mistake about it: The bedbug crisis began right after Bush seized power. It's sadly amusing to watch the media place the blame everywhere except where it belongs.

How out of control is the bedbug situation in Cincinnati? In the past year, one out of every 6 people in town has had bedbugs. And that doesn't count those who don't know it yet. Hamilton County received only 2 bedbug complaints in 2003 - but almost 300 in 2008.

As another kick in the teeth, renters' insurance is often a scam: In many states, including Kentucky, it won't cover furniture ruined by bedbugs - thereby proving once again what a rip-off insurance is.

But why would bedbugs be so out of control in Cincinnati of all places?

Well, how come I managed to have both salmonella and dengue fever near Cincinnati in the same year (1989)? Why does Cincinnati seem to have a whooping cough epidemic every few years? It's probably because the Cincinnati region in the '80s and '90s had a pattern of bad public policies that took years to break. Officials at the time were more worried about fighting "smut" than in public health.

Bedbug infestations are what happens when our public officials think that someone reading Playboy in the privacy of their own home is a more urgent threat than germs and vermin.

In the meantime, lawmakers should require renters' insurance to cover bedbug damage.

(Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bedbugs4-2009jan04,0,1108531.story)

Open thread

Bubbling: an international sport! (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Although bubble gum was invented in the good ol' U.S. and A., bubbling has become an international sport!

Maybe the Olympics should have bubble gum blowing!

Bubble gum became so popular around the world that Bubble Yum even marketed its brand in Mexico with a Spanish-language ad campaign. This commersh is probably from the late '70s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzD-dY3SVYs

Notice that this ad uses many of the same concepts as Bubble Yum's U.S. campaign of the time. For instance, a person squeezes the piece of gum to demonstrate its softness. Also, people bubble.

However, the great marketing geniuses at Bubble Yum may have committed a major translation error: "Goma de Mascar."

I studied Spanish in college, and when the professor asked the class to name various snack foods in Spanish, someone said "goma", believing it was the Spanish word for gum.

The professor gave the class a strange look.

The student replied, "You know, goma."

The professor said, "You mean this?" She began moving her jaw as if she was chomping a giant wad of BG.

"Yes, that."

The professor replied that "goma" actually means rubber, as in gumboots - not the chewing kind of gum. The Spanish term for chewing gum is "chicle."

So Bubble Yum was actually marketing its product as rubber for chewing!

Virginia may defy Real ID fascists

Virginia lately is starting to behave like a normal state!

Two proposed bills in Virginia would pull the Old Dominion out of the fascist Real ID program - joining a bevy of other states that have opted out of this illegal national ID.

Meanwhile, 5 states have actually passed laws to bring their states into compliance with the Real ID. It's unknown which states, but if Kentucky is one of them, you will hear about it here - and possibly elsewhere.

(Source: http://hamptonroads.com/2009/01/virginia-legislation-would-reject-national-identification-program)

New EU head a climate change denier

As goes the European Union, as must go its member countries, as we all know.

The EU has now appointed right-wing Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus as its own head. Klaus has some rather, uh, interesting views. For one, he doesn't believe in climate change, despite the scientific consensus showing that climate change is real and caused by human activity. He claims global warming is a massive myth.

He also likens the EU itself to a communist country. One is reminded of American right-wingers who decried the U.S. government as too far to the left even after the Republicans had controlled it for years.

It's not as if conservatives haven't controlled the EU and made every effort to exert their power. Klaus succeeds France's right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy. With Klaus's appointment, it appears as if 4 of the 5 most recent EU heads will have been at least somewhat conservative. And it shows.

The EU isn't communist, but it has become nearly a dictatorship.

(Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5430362.ece)

Native American retailers taxed

Some of the poorest areas in the state of New York are on American Indian reservations. But now the state is going to start collecting sales taxes there.

This new tax probably isn't constitutional, of course, but who's still counting?

The Empire State is also home to major banks that received a windfall at taxpayer expense in the bailout debacle. I know taxes have to be paid somewhere to keep the state's economy moving (especially after Wacky Pataki's mismanagement), but did you ever think that maybe the state ought to shift the tax burden to the banks that got the bailout, instead of to the state's poorest regions?

Let's look at the facts here: Banks got a bailout. Banks have almost no regulations. People have regulations on what they do; banks seldom do. Banks received a handout that far exceeds anything that any individual in America has ever gotten. In fact, the total bailout was probably worth more than has been spent on programs for the poor over the past 75 years.

Maybe New York ought to step up to the plate and tell the banks, "Hey, we're taxing your bailout money."

(Source: http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/9699/gov-paterson-to-sign-the-indian-tax-bill)

Boom! They fucked your rights!

This story is from last month, but I had to put it on the backburner for a while.

In Walla Walla, Washington, the "zero tolerance" thought police is at it full-throttle. A student at a public high school there was suspended from school for 2 days all because of a sticker on her car. The sticker read, "Boom! I Fucked Your Boyfriend."

The girl and her family contacted the National Coalition Against Censorship to see if her constitutional right to free speech was violated. Here's a hint: It was.

But the school remained unconvinced, and of course apologists for the school quickly swooped down on blog comment sections to defend the school.

(Source: http://blogs.ublabs.org/schoolhousemissives/2008/12/10/thats-fed-up)

Why does Hollywood hate the cities?

Is Lee Siegel some sort of conservative? I don't remember offhand ever hearing the name before, but judging by his piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal of December 29, he must be.

The piece is emblazoned with the alarmist headline, "Why Does Hollywood Hate the Suburbs?" Siegel groans about "over 50 years of antisuburban sentiment in American culture" and accuses a popular novel of possessing "rage against the suburbs."

Aw, did someone suffer feewinghurt?

Fact is, the media's longtime bias against poor central cities and rural areas (and in favor of wealthy suburbs) is one of America's untold stories. And if you really want to feel the media's wrath, announce that you're from a central city in the Midwest.

My experience has been that the suburbs are where my aspirations have gone to die. I know I'm not the only American with this feeling. But the media's bias favoring the suburbs is far more than merely annoying: It's detrimental to America's political interests, as major parties try to appeal disproportionately to elite suburbs.

Official figures show that most Americans live in suburbs, but that's misleading, because this definition of a suburb includes many central cities. Still, it skews political dialogue.

It's also true that the suburbs exert disproportionate control over American politics. I'm certain that - with the exception of 1984 - the Republicans have lost every presidential election of my lifetime if you don't count the suburbs. Even '84 is iffy.

Another untold story is that many American suburbs were founded entirely on racism. Not all suburbs - but many. This bigotry was so central to suburban life that it was in effect illegal for minorities to even live in many suburbs (as well as some other places). Now there are laws designed to halt racial discrimination (which aren't always enforced), but economic discrimination hasn't subsided.

Are we supposed to think wealthy suburbs are poor, beleaguered victims all because one movie or novel portrays suburbs negatively?

Diocese sued for racketeering

Well, it's happened. As well it should.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut, is now being