Scholaring obligation fulfilled tomorrow!

Just think! A whole weekend with no stories of right-wing incompetence!

That's because tomorrow morn I'm leaving on my fact-finding mission in the Southeast, and I'll be getting home Sunday night. So I probably won't be able to post here until then. It's not completely out of the question, but it's not likely either.

This satisfies my Roads Scholaring commitment for February. If you want to stretch things, you could say I already fulfilled it by posting photos from the night of February 2, but that was a minor event.

I could have taken the Peace Bike out this past Wednesday, but there are concerns far deeper than the weather which I won't even get into. I could have taken it out today for Commuter Clot, but I don't know if it's not canceled again because of the weather, and I wanted time to get ready for this weekend's trip to Georgia and South Carolina.

In an interview this week, the Peace Bike said, "I can't wait for the Eyewitness Cam to bring back some nice images of the region. Hopefully, potholes like that which plagued the device's attempt to photograph a bridge in Martinsville, Virginia, in December will be avoided."

If this isn't Scholaring, what is?

See ya in 2 days!

Crybabies throw a party!

I keep hearing about events that are billed as Boston Tea Party reenactments all over America lately.

And silly me. At first, I thought they might actually be real tax protests against something like the UnfairTax.

But nope!

It's just a bunch of Freep-a-zoids and right-wing idle rich complaining about Obama's stimulus package and foreclosure assistance program.

I guess they want the recession and the foreclosure crisis to continue. They're the ones benefiting from these crises, so why not?

The organizers are champions of phony populism. It reminds me of that True Blue Patriot nonsense that used to flood the letters page of our local paper.

And yes, the demonstrators (all 8 of them) at some of these so-called Tea Parties do spill tea. One such event in Iowa was stymied because environmental regulations barred the dumping of tea in the Cedar River.

I found out today that this mockery of the Boston Tea Party is coming to Cincinnati! It's scheduled for 3 PM on Sunday, March 15 at Fountain Square.

And I just might crash it - if I'm not doing something else, and if I'm not sick in bed. (Such travesties are possible, you know.)

I saw the website for the Cincinnati event, and part of it is devoted to complaining about stimulus money being used to combat school bullying. So I have every reason to fight these Potemkin populists.

The rest of the website is devoted to grumbling about how the rich have it so hard, and how the big, mean libs are giving their money to the poor, and blah blah blah.

Nice to know a Nazi rally is coming to Fountain Square. A couple years ago, the CCCDC forced an antiwar rally to buy a prohibitively expensive insurance policy - but it imposes no such requirement on the BTPers.

I plan on being there to keep an eye on the spoiled Tea Party babies, but I don't know how much of their hate speech I can stomach, so I probably won't get too close.

Also, Steve Chabot is supposed to be there - which makes me gladder than ever that he lost his reelection bid. If that loser wants to support a rally that favors school bullying, that's his problem.

(Source: http://www.news4jax.com/news/18810414/detail.html)

Jindal admits he lied

So now Bobby Jindal admits that he was full of wafto gas when he made up that story about meeting the sheriff during Hurricane Katrina.

A spokesperson for Jindal says the embattled loon actually overheard the sheriff talking about the incident days after it occurred - not while it was going on. Evidently, Jindal did meet the lawman - but just not during the height of the hurricane, as he has claimed.

Jindal actually played no part in letting the rescue boats perform their mission - even though he claimed he had.

Thus, the story that was central to the Republican response to President Obama's speech has now turned out to be a Big Lie.

But, after being caught in a lie, Jindal seems to be playing the victim - in an attempt to burnish his conservative credentials further. It's kind of like Reagan's made-up fable about welfare recipients driving new luxury cars, or Rush Limbaugh's lie about the farmer going to jail for accidentally killing a rat with his tractor.

Now that's tr00thyism!

Seriously, is being a pathological liar a requirement for being a prominent Republican these days?

Talk about a political party crashing and burning.

(Source: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/jindal_admits_katrina_story_was_false.php?ref=fp1)

Murder suspect was GOP volunteer

Yesterday in Miramar Beach, Florida, a man shot a group of 5 people and barricaded himself in his house, police say. Two of the victims - who were visitors from Chile - died.

Authorities say the suspect is Dannie Roy Baker, a man in his 60s.

It turns out that Baker is a big Republican operative. After it was discovered that Baker had circulated strange right-wing e-mails last year, it was also found that Baker had volunteered for the Bush campaign in 2004. Other Republicans described him as "very active" in the campaign.

The media outside a small part of Florida has not picked up the story of the suspect's Republican activity. But it should, because this is a pattern. There's the BTK killer, the Tennessee church murderer, the man who assassinated the head of the Arkansas Democrats - the list goes on and on. All of these killings - whether they were politically motivated or not - were by people who were firmly established to be right-wingers.

America's right wing has become so extreme that it's become dominated by weirdoes who parlay their personal turmoil into politics. It festers and grows because of right-wing talk radio droids who feed it.

(Source: http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/county_15423___article.html/office_sheriff.html)

Justice Department backs telcom immunity

Maybe President Obama doesn't support telcom immunity, but his Justice Department sure as hell does.

I sensed trouble when Obama appointed someone from the Clinton administration like Eric Holder as Attorney General, considering the Clinton White House's disappointing record on personal freedom. True to form, the Holder-led Justice Department is now defending a law that shields telcom firms from lawsuits regarding their conspiring with the Bush regime to spy on phone communications.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the department is defending this law because it "is the law of the land, and as such the Department of Justice defends it in court."

Not if it's unconstitutional, you don't.

Obama has opposed immunity, yet when he was a senator he voted for the immunity bill. The supposed reasoning is that the bill also included some goodies that had nothing to do with immunity. Obviously, however, the real reason is that there was so much arm-twisting going on by the Bush regime, the Republicans, and the DLC.

But immunity wasn't legal before, and it's not constitutional even now.

The rubber-stamping of tyranny crawl continues. Why? Because we've been programmed into letting it. In the past month, America has made inroads into reversing Bush's extremism. But I'm convinced our liberty won't be fully restored to what it was unless there's another shakeup at the Justice Department.

I'm also convinced that if Cynthia McKinney had been elected, nobody in her administration would be backing telcom immunity. Those who insisted a vote for McKinney was a vote for McCain can't say I didn't warn them of the DLC's dominance in the Democratic Party.

We may just have to place the real power in the hands of the states. The states should prosecute the telcom companies, and if the federal government says no, that's when the states are going to have to pass bills to say where they stand.

I think maybe the next symbol to add to the key to this blog should be one for the scourge of telcom immunity.

(Source: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/02/obama-adminis-1.html)

My tax dollars at work

Personally, I have nothing against "In God We Trust" license plates - just as long as anyone who wants it pays for it, just like those who pay for other specialty plates.

Getting the plate for free means you're getting it at taxpayer expense.

Now Kentucky wants to offer the religious plates for free - much as Indiana has been doing for some time. In Indiana, the entire purpose of the plates was in fact to transfer taxpayer money to religious bodies.

Offering the religious plates for free when other specialty plates require a fee is unconstitutional, of course. I'd give this idea a pass if the religious plates required a fee like the others. But lawmakers couldn't be sensible about it, could they?

Do you realize that if this idea passes in Kentucky, my tax money would be spent to sponsor religion, without my consent?

I will be one of the first people to sign up as a plaintiff in the lawsuit that will inevitably be filed. In America, you follow the Constitution. Period.

I wonder what the reaction would be if a legislator introduced a bill to allow free specialty plates supporting separation of church and state.

I work hard and pay taxes, and I'd much rather see my tax money spent on schools, transportation, and health care than on something that's not even constitutional.

(Source: http://www.wsaz.com/news/headlines/40159652.html)

Senate bars FCC from closing unlicensed stations (satire)

The Senate has barred federal regulators from continuing a policy, expanded 2 decades ago, that used stormtrooper tactics to shut down unlicensed stations that harm nobody.

The Senate vote on the FCC's war on micropower radio was in part a response to the fact that unlicensed broadcasting is almost necessary now to ensure that those of us who are not raging right-wingers get equal time.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) said, "Cautious unlicensed use of the radio spectrum can be useful to restore the free exchange of ideas. The Senate's effort is as American as apple pie, mom, and baseball."

Actually this article so far is just a spoof of a real AP piece. DeMint said no such thing. He's stupid, so of course he'd never say anything that makes that much sense.

Quite the contrary, the Senate has approved DeMint's measure to bar the FCC from reimplementing the Fairness Doctrine.

You can argue all you want about whether the Fairness Doctrine is a good idea. It might not be a high priority for me, but you have to remember that the airwaves are a public trust.

The real issue is DeMint's hypocrisy. He personifies the right-wing policy of "regulation for thee, not for me." Like other conservatives, he wants less regulation for wealthy broadcasters who run established stations - but refuses to come to the defense of unlicensed micropower stations.

These micropower outlets are necessary for the free exchange of ideas to flourish. Perhaps they wouldn't even be needed if there was a Fairness Doctrine or if the FCC would stop rubber-stamping station transfers to right-wing corporations.

If DeMint insists the First Amendment protects established stations from the Fairness Doctrine, then it must also be true that the First Amendment protects unlicensed stations that don't even interfere with any other broadcast. End of story.

You can't have it both ways. But conservatives always try to.

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iZo8HqKUQ5LkGkTf0CiQtS7WQlQQD96JF8V00)

Jindal made up hurricane story

This imbecile is actually a serious contender to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012?

Right-wing Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has garnered yawns over his response to President Obama's speech about the economy. Jindal hoped to coast on his account of bureaucratic red tape that confronted a Louisiana sheriff during Hurricane Katrina.

Jindal claimed that while he was a congressman during the hurricane, he met the late Sheriff Harry Lee of Jefferson Parish while the sheriff was calling boats in to rescue people from rooftops. He said that the lawman was talking on the phone with federal bureaucrats who wouldn't let the boats go out until they could prove they had insurance. Jindal boasted that the sheriff and himself then opted to defy this outrageous federal fiat so they could rescue folks.

Bobby Jindal was trying to blame the big, mean libs for this unreasonable insurance rule.

Well, it turns out the incident didn't happen the way Jindal claims.

In a 2005 CNN interview, Sheriff Lee said he didn't even find out about the insurance requirement until a week after the hurricane. In other words, Jindal completely made up what Lee said during the meeting - if there was a meeting at all.

And guess what? There wasn't. Jindal never met Lee during that time frame. Lee had to stay behind on the ground in the affected area - but the only news reports of Jindal coming close to the area were of his aerial tour.

Furthermore, it was the Bush regime that imposed the insurance requirement in the first place - probably to please some insurance companies.

Lee died in 2007, so it's been harder to confirm exactly what happened. If he was alive today, he could help put Jindal's tale to rest once and for all.

Jindal also used Tuesday's speech to criticize federal funding of volcano monitors. "Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington," the embattled governor grumbled.

Uh, Bobby? Several major American cities are within striking distance of active volcanoes. The mayor of Vancouver, Washington, was infuriated at Jindal's remark. "Does the governor have a volcano in his back yard?" the mayor angrily asked.

If Jindal thinks we should cut volcano monitors, does he think we should cut hurricane monitors too? Probably. His ideological rigidity is the same type that was displayed in the mid-'90s when the Republican Congress cut off funding of flood monitors in northern Kentucky. As a result, there was no warning of the devastating 1997 flood. Several people died.

If Bobby Jindal is the future of the Republican Party, they better get used to Obama winning at least 45 states next time.

(Source: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/jindals_katrina_story_a_tall_tale.php;
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/25/121750/746;
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/25/jindal.volcanoes)

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Dean Grose!

Let's play another game of "guess the party affiliation." Neither the Orange County Register nor UPI reported what party this oaf is a member of. But from this story, you can guess.

Dean Grose - the clod with the '70s televangelist hairdo pictured here - is the mayor of Los Alamitos, California. But he's certainly not much of a leader.

Grose is in trouble because he sent out a racist e-mail that included a picture of a watermelon patch in the White House garden.

Haw haw haw. I don't see anyone laughing, do you?

Seriously, does anyone at all think that's funny? I don't. It's not even creative in the least bit.

But Grose's excuse is that he didn't intend to be offensive. That's just like how apologists for a serial bully in high school who beats the shit out of you day after day say the bully actually just wants to be your friend. The mayor thinks people are supposed to believe his racism is friendly?

I looked up on Google to see what political party Dean Grose is a member of - as if I couldn't guess. To the surprise of no one, Grose is a Republican.

Uh, Dean? I hear there might be an opening for a cartoonist at the New York Post soon.

(Source: http://streetknowledge.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/more-friendly-racism-mayor-is-criticized-for-white-house-watermelon-patch-e-mail-sent-to-black-business-woman)

Cops imprisoned for death in botched drug raid

This entry is about yet another drug raid that went awry - this time in Atlanta in 2006.

For starts, police used a no-knock warrant, which is illegal. Furthermore, the warrant was obtained on falsified information. Cops used this warrant to barge into the home of an innocent 92-year-old woman - after an informant lied and told them there were drugs in the home.

The elderly woman thought the cops were robbers, so she grabbed her gun and shot through the door. Police returned fire with 39 shots and killed her.

The cops in this case were actually worse than robbers. They were home invaders. And they became killers.

The police officers then attempted to cover up the actions they took in getting the bogus warrant! One of the cops even placed marijuana in the residence to make it look like they had the right house.

But the lies and cover-ups didn't pay: A federal judge has now sentenced 3 officers involved in the botched raid to prison terms varying from 5 to 10 years for violating the woman's civil rights. They are not eligible for parole (though they can get their sentences reduced by 15% for good behavior).

I think it's a shame they didn't receive an even longer sentence. Twelve bullets were found in the elderly woman's body, and they only get 5 to 10 years? If the woman had killed the cops that she thought were robbers, she would have probably received the death penalty. I'm not in favor of capital punishment, but I think the drug cops got off easy for killing an innocent person.

The officers still face state charges of voluntary manslaughter.

Meanwhile, trust in the Atlanta police has been shattered.

(Source: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/02/23/johnston_sentencing.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab)

Cops attack dissenter at Coulter lecture

It's hard to say what symbol from the key I should use here. Since Ann Coulter is involved, probably most of them.

Last week, Coulter made a stop at the College of New Jersey. College Republicans groped attendees with a metal detector, and Coulter's lecture was as idiotic as one might expect.

At the end of the school-sponsored appearance, the vice-president of the College Democrats tried asking Coulter some incisive, trenchant questions. In response, the student was promptly brutalized by police officials.

Police dragged the student out of the auditorium, shoved him to the ground, and injured him - all for asking Ann Coulter a serious question. The cops called the student a "fucking asshole", "faggot", and "shithead."

I know that at least several cops read this blog, and there's general agreement that for any police officer to behave the way cops behaved in this story is unprofessional and criminal. The police in this incident weren't acting like real police. They were acting like jackbooted brownshirts.

Ironically, most of Coulter's speech was spent comparing Democrats to Nazis. Yet at every Coulter appearance, it's always her supporters who display Nazi behavior. At other Coulter lectures, College Republicans have roughed up people who dared to dissent.

I support honest, competent, professional police. But I have absolutely zero patience with those who abuse a badge to the degree seen in this incident. There are few individuals who I deem completely unworthy of living in society, but if a police officer abuses their power as spectacularly as in this episode, they certainly fit into that category.

We need to change the law and impose life imprisonment for those who misuse a badge to brutalize members of the public.

(Source: http://media.www.signal-online.net/media/storage/paper771/news/2009/02/18/News/Coulter.Liberal.Media.Bias.Creates.victims-3637902.shtml;
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/19/155659/800/272/699418)

Union organizer attacked with acid

Anti-worker violence. Coming to a land near you.

Police in Greece have now arrested a man suspected of involvement in brutally attacking a union organizer. In the December assault, 2 right-wing extremists threw acid in the organizer's face and shoved the acid down her throat. The union organizer is still hospitalized in serious condition.

The attack followed the organizer receiving death threats from right-wing terrorists.

It's not a stretch to suspect the assailants were goons hired by union-busting corporate big shots. In recent years, major American corporations have apparently hired thugs to rape those who protest against the corporations' polluting of the environment, so anti-labor violence ordered from the top certainly seems likely.

Hopefully authorities will investigate to see what corporations may be behind the acid attack.

Unfortunately, the European Union has been a windfall for corporate power - which would hardly seem to curtail corporate-sponsored terrorism. With the EU's increasingly conservative leadership, corporatism will only fester and grow.

In America a century ago, several towns barred union members from even living there. Even now, it's unclear if these restrictions have been lifted, or if similar violence won't befall union members who locate there.

(Source: http://www.aol.com.au/news/story/Greece-Man-held-for-acid-attack-on-union-official/1721941/index.html)

No meal for you! (Slap!)

You may remember the 'Seinfeld' episode about the "Soup Nazi." He was a character who ran a soup stand and bellowed, "No soup for you!" if customers didn't maintain a rigid protocol when ordering soup.

Now America's schools are telling poor children, "No meal for you!"

Several large school districts have launched an effort to stigmatize low-income kids by depriving them of full meals at lunch. They'll serve them a cold cheese sandwich, a microscopic slice of fruit, and an 8-ounce skim milk. But - at least for growing children - that does not constitute a whole lunch.

The schools' excuse is that their parents haven't paid what they owe for lunches. Well, that's because they can't, because they are too poor. (The schools probably force them to waste money buying uniforms instead.)

Schools aren't shy about making an issue of feeding poor kids substandard meals. On countless occasions, school officials have made a production out of pulling poor children from the lunch line to be served separately, to the jeers of classmates.

Obviously it's not about saving money. It's about meanness. Schools single out poor and working-class pupils for mistreatment because they can. I wasn't rich, and the schools tried to humiliate me too. It's happened to many folks.

The so-called meals fed to poor students aren't just too small. They're also of poor quality, and the food may in fact be spoiled. One child said, "Every time I eat it, it makes me feel like I want to throw up."

If these lunches are considered adequate for low-income kids, why aren't they good enough for everyone else? If the schools are so interested in saving money, why don't they just serve these meals to everybody? The government had billions of dollars to give to Halliburton and Custer Battles, and it's worried about spending too much on school lunches?

Nah. It's meanness.

(Source: http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=cincinnati&sParam=30237411.story)

Iraq War to end within 18 months

Elections have consequences.

When we let buffoons like Bush in the White House, we get poorly planned wars. Now that America has elected Obama to replace him, the end of the Iraq War that Bush started is finally in sight.

I have no doubt that with a John McCain or a Hillary Clinton, the war would still be going on during the next election.

President Obama is now set to order all American combat troops out of Iraq within 18 months - a process he has already begun. I'd like to see an immediate withdrawal, but considering Bush's poor execution of this war, that hasn't seemed likely.

The war is 6 years and counting, and it really is long past time to start wrapping things up. That night in 2003 when it started was long, and it's been a long and costly war.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/news/national/story/Troops-to-leave-Iraq-in-18-months-officials-say/emDit7HRV0ukKI6tF1d8Kg.cspx)

That's the truth! Ppphh! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

I remember one time when I was about 8 years old, I went swimming with my family at A.J. Jolly County Park.

On the way home, we stopped for supper at the Lee's Famous Recipe in Highland Heights. While I was devouring my chicken dinner, my nose began to tickle. It was the telltale sign of a bogey!

I rubbed my nose a bit in an attempt to dislodge the gob of mucus. When I felt that the booger was about to emerge, I waited until my parents weren't looking, extracted the boogie, and wiped it under the table in the fast food restaurant.

And that's the truth! Ppphh!

Another class warfare run

This is yet another frustrating demonstration of class warfare in suburban Cincinnati - but sadly, it's not atypical locally or nationally.

In Springfield Township, officials are trying to halt what they call a "gravy train" of publicly assisted housing. They complain that such housing has saturated their suburban township, and that the amount of publicly assisted housing is "an excess."

Yet this housing composes only (get this) 5% of all the housing stock in Springfield Township.

Five percent is saturation and "an excess"?

Considering the poverty rate in Hamilton County is close to 15% (or probably much higher), I'd call the 5% housing statistic a shortage, not "an excess." Still, 5% of housing being publicly assisted is far more than most Cincinnati suburbs - many of which have become no-go zones for poor and working-class people.

Township officials remain undeterred! They complain that housing for low-income people causes existing property values to decline. Well, township officials should be lucky they have property to worry about the value of. The working poor who are about to be driven out don't.

Are the suburbs not part of American society? In a society, communities share burdens. We can't tell central cities or poor rural counties to keep shouldering all of society's expenses. It's bad from a fairness perspective - and it has blunted interest in central cities, deprived them of economic improvements that would benefit residents, and fostered hopelessness.

The result of official efforts to keep out low-income housing? More "soak-the-poor" policies that are passed off as some great reforms.

And more naked hatred against the working poor. This story has prompted class-baiting right-wing comments on local news websites. One right-wing commenter said, "I work hard to pay for my home and I don't want people who can't afford the market rate living in my neighborhood. If you're poor you should not enjoy the same quality of housing of those of us who work and can afford our homes in the neighborhoods we choose."

Hey smartass, the working poor are called the working poor for a reason.

Should America fix some of its policies regarding publicly funded housing? Surely. But does any community have a right to drive out low-income residents? Absolutely not.

(Source: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090224/NEWS0108/902240351/1055/NEWS)

Bunning threatens to sue if anyone runs against him

That comedy routine known as Jim Bunning is at it yet again!

The Kentucky senator and former major league pitcher has grown increasingly frustrated with those who dare to challenge the notion that everything he does deserves sheer praise.

Since it's obvious Bunning is going to lose his Senate reelection bid if he's the Republican nominee again, party officials are starting to worry. It appears as if they've been taking him aside and saying, "Uh, Jim? We'd really like to keep this Senate seat. So we'd appreciate it if you don't run again."

But Bunning doesn't get the message. He's going to run again.

And he's threatening to sue if any other Republican dares to run against him in the primary!

Maybe Bunning hasn't threatened to sue any potential opponents per se. But he has threatened to sue the National Republican Senatorial Committee if they try to find a more winnable candidate.

Talk about an ego that's out of control - and a party that's self-destructing before our eyes.

(Source: http://bluegrasspolitics.bloginky.com/2009/02/24/bunning-i-would-have-a-suit-if-republicans-recruit-an-opponent)

ACLU defends teacher who posed with gun

Conservatives claim to be such great Second Amendment (and First Amendment) champions, but this story ought to silence these claims. (But you know it won't.)

Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, is in a Republican county, and the school district is run by conservatives. (What school district isn't?) But recently, the school system placed a middle school teacher on leave because she posed with a shotgun on her Facebook page.

The photo was not taken at school, and the Facebook page was not made using school computers. It was her personal Facebook page - and owning a shotgun is not illegal.

Despite this, the school system suspended her anyway - as if they can control what she does on her own time. Do you have to get permission from your employer to post anything on your personal website from your home computer?

Now the ACLU is quite properly defending the teacher. A statement from the ACLU of Wisconsin says that "public school teachers do not lose their right to free expression when they are not working."

Isn't this the same ACLU that conservatives just utterly hate? Why yes, as a matter of fact, it is.

Conservatives have lined up against an organization that opposes a school system that thinks it can keep employees in suspended animation. Not as if we didn't know whose side the conservatives were on, because the school system ain't exactly run by progressive populists.

(Source: http://www.wkowtv.com/global/story.asp?s=9802250&ClientType=Printable;
http://www.wkowtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9781795&nav=menu1362_10)

Another study proves media's GOP bias

Some national or regional news organizations are so singularly dedicated to advancing the same propaganda over and over that I wonder if the next icon to add to the key for this blog should be one for media bias.

Now yet another study has proven that election coverage by the TV networks has favored Republicans.

Gee, ya think?

The Indiana University study covered ABC, CBS, and NBC from 1992 through 2004. In each and every one of these 4 elections, coverage was biased in favor of the GOP.

One of the researchers says this bias isn't because journalists actually want to favor Republicans - but because they're afraid of being accused of a liberal bias. (This despite the fact that Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson noted the media's Republican bias as far back as the 1940s and 1950s.) Maybe it's true that most journalists don't wish to favor the GOP. But media corporations clearly do. It's impossible for the media's conservative tilt to be so pervasive without deliberate manipulation at very high levels.

I've yet to see this story reported anywhere except on IU's website. That the media won't cover the story is very proof of the media's bias!

This should also put a lid on Sarah Palin's continuing demagoguery in which she incessantly blames the media for her public idiocy.

(Source: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/9993.html)

About posting comments here

It cracked a roo.

Just joking!

There have been reports lately that comments on this blog haven't been appearing. Often, a reader will attempt to post a comment, only to be confronted with red text about the message not getting through.

The problem is not in your set. It's in the blogging service. I have no more control over this than I have over what people say in chat rooms while I'm asleep. So if you post a comment that doesn't seem to get through, post it again until it does.

Until it's fixed, grin and bear it!

Video game censorship law struck down!

I've written much about federal courts striking down state laws. But if the state law is unconstitutional, it deserves to be struck down.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals usually leans to the right (conservative complaints to the contrary notwithstanding). In recent years, the court has usually been squarely on the side of more laws against individual conduct and fewer laws against the conduct of Big Business.

But even a broken clock is right twice a day, and the Ninth Circuit has finally generated a proper constitutional ruling - this time upholding the free exchange of ideas and individual rights.

The court quite accurately ruled on Friday that a California law to censor "violent" video games is unconstitutional. Of course the law was unconstitutional. Anyone with even a basic grasp of the First Amendment could see that.

California's law, which passed in 2005, restricted sales and rentals of games and imposed rigid labeling requirements.

All this after the censors spent the '90s harping about how video game ratings were only voluntary.

Some of you are going to ask whether the law that was struck down actually restricted the rights of corporations that sell the games rather than the rights of individuals. Actually, the law violated individual rights more. Free flow of media materials incorporates individuals' right to view what they want.

I also know that some whiny crybabies are going to say the Constitution should be ignored altogether, just because of their own desire to ban games. Fuck them.

(Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2044580420090220)

Powerful landowner blocks trail

One of the wealthiest landowners in eastern Maine has some straaaaange ideas about the law.

If a strip of public land runs through your property, do you have a right to block access to this strip? Of course not. But this guy apparently thinks he does.

Maine officials have converted an abandoned rail line into a much-needed public trail for hikers and bicyclists. But the adjacent landowner has put up several barricades to block the trail. He seems to think that when a rail line is abandoned, the right-of-way automatically becomes property of the adjoining landowners, with no strings attached.

That's like saying that if a street becomes abandoned, private property owners can just automatically take ownership of the abandoned street. Well, it ain't so. I've found several abandoned roads around Cincinnati, I can tell you firsthand it isn't so.

The landowner in this case is wrong. At minimum, the state acquired the rail right-of-way from the railroad with the intent on making it a public trail. In fact, one source says the state already owned the right-of-way even when the railroad used it, and leased it to the railroad.

Still, the landowner's signs remain: "This portion of the railroad bed is closed. No trespassing. Violators will be prosecuted." And yes, that's an Allowed Cloud.

It's an Allowed Cloud I'd have every reason to defy, as the state of Maine seems to back me up.

(Source: http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/100064.html)

Kentucky bishops support Holocaust denier

I'm not sure which of the symbols in the key for my blog I should use here. Probably most of them - so I'm not even going to bother. This is one these stories where you almost lapse into suspension of disbelief - until you realize how sadly real the story is.

Now that Pope Benedict XVI has lifted the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson, who denied the Holocaust, leaders of all 4 Catholic dioceses in Kentucky have issued a statement supporting reinstating Williamson.

This came at the same time the Pope promoted an ultraconservative priest to assistant bishop of Linz, Austria. The clergyman, Fr. Gerhard Maria Wagner, has been described as "the Catholic Fred Phelps." That's because he applauds disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. He boasted that the hurricane was God's punishment for the supposed decadence of New Orleans, and he said he was glad that the storm did so much damage.

Wagner also claimed that the Harry Potter books spread Satanism.

Sounds like a perfect Bush Cabinet pick, huh?

As for the Pope's reinstatement of a Holocaust-denying bishop, supporters of this move are blaming the media for the resulting controversy. Lovely.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/news/commonwealth/story/Ky-Bishops-Support-Vatican-In-Bishop-Controversy/unaiRLnX5ki-jVjN-tQxuQ.cspx;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7863254.stm;
http://www.thelocal.de/society/20090206-17261.html)

One county under fascism

This is a story not only about censorship and poor sportsmanship, but also about naked right-wing thuggery.

In Pinellas Park, Florida, a shop owner posted a sign outside his business supporting the new Commander-in-Chief. It reads, "One Nation Under Obama."

This does not sit well with the local right-wing intelligentsia. Unable to cope with losing the election, GOP cultists have vandalized the sign repeatedly. The business owner even set up a surveillance cam that caught a group of people climbing over his fence and defacing the sign.

For 8 years, Bush's followers certainly weren't shy about hiding their love of their hero. So Obama's backers have every justification to show off their support of the new President.

Still, Republican thugs remain undeterred. Regarding the Obama sign, one right-wing nutcase was filmed telling the shop owner, "I hope somebody messes with it again. And trust me, as Americans, we will." You just admitted to a crime, idiot. Now fuck off.

But now the county says the sign has to go. Enforcers in Pinellas County also say the fence that is supposed to keep out vandals is too high.

Tough shit. It's a free country.

Bush cultists posted countless signs over the years supporting their leader - and Pinellas County didn't tell them they had to remove their signs. But one Obama sign appears, and the county throws a shitfit.

If the fascists who run Pinellas County hate free speech so much, remember that they are along international waters, you know. They can always anchor a ship in the Gulf of Mexico and start their own country, that doesn't have a First Amendment.

If I was the shop owner, I sure as hell wouldn't remove my sign.

(Source: http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/obama_sign_controversy_022009)

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Jim Bunning!

How did this idiot ever get elected from my state?

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky) would already be facing a much tougher reelection fight had the media not downplayed his abuse of his foundation's nonprofit status to make a profit, but his latest statement ought to sink him.

Bunning is boasting about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's pancreatic cancer.

In an appearance before a group of Hardin County Republicans, Bunning predicted the death of the 75-year-old Ginsburg and bragged that it would create an opening to appoint a conservative Justice. The senator said that a conservative Justice is "going to be in place very shortly" because of Ginsburg's illness.

One is reminded of when the Republicans rubbed their hands together in excitement over Tim Johnson's stroke. They could hardly contain their glee over that.

Someone also needs to remind Bunning that his side didn't win the election, so they don't get to appoint the next Justice if there's a vacancy soon. Even Clinton had a passable batting average on appointing Supreme Court Justices, so why does Bunning think Obama would be any more conservative?

Show a little class, Jim.

(Source: http://allspinzone.com/wp/2009/02/23/jim-bunning-r-ky-has-bad-taste)

In case you're wondering about Taft-Hartley...

After last week's 'Pail Poll, in which you voted in favor of repealing the Taft-Hartley Act's provisions allowing work-for-less laws, some of you have asked whether the entire Taft-Hartley Act should be repealed.

My answer: yes. It ought to be repealed. And it nearly happened once in the '60s. Even in the '90s, Taft-Hartley would have been softened, but for Republican opposition to this effort in Congress. The work-for-less scourge is only one major facet of Taft-Hartley, which also has other unfortunate provisions.

If there was any parallel legislation restricting corporations, Big Business would be crying to every federal court in the land to block it. You can bet your life savings on that.

Bullshit ruling blocks slaughterhouse law

This is what America's stuck with for another 30 years because of Katherine Harris's corruption.

Right-wing judicial activism has reared its misshapen noggin again, this time regarding California slaughterhouses.

California has a very sensible law that says you can't sell meat that comes from downer animals. The law also requires these ill animals to be humanely put down. This statute is designed to promote humane treatment of animals and to safeguard the public from contaminated food.

Now, however, the National Meat Association and the American Meat Institute have filed a greed-driven lawsuit to have the law tossed out. And U.S. District Judge Lawrence O'Neill complied by blocking the law, saying that federal law trumps it.

Except it doesn't.

I can't find anything in federal law that says a state can't have such regulations. In fact, the law specifically allows states to have such rules. Even if federal law does say a state can't have rules like this, this is still an issue on which the states have a constitutional power to enact laws that are stronger than federal laws.

But not in the matchbook law world of BushAmerica. Who appointed O'Neill? I'll give you 3 guesses. He was appointed by scuzz-a-lug Bush, that's who.

The right-wing Ninth Circus had issued a similar ruling in a different case. It too is bogus, for the same reasons as this court diktat.

What's the point in even dividing the country into states if courts can just impose their whims to nullify state laws?

You'd think this problem could be remedied if the federal government passes a law saying states have the power to enact rules on slaughterhouses. But the law already says this, and the courts have just ignored it. Congress might have to pass its own law to do what the California law did, but on a national level. But who says courts won't gut that too?

Right now, California is going to have to pass a bill to assert state sovereignty, in order to defend its rules on slaughterhouses. Otherwise it's going to be stuck with Bush bunk gas for the next 30 years.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/20/14656/2380/881/699826)

Oops! Station almost lops off drug frame-up

The Fox affiliate in Cincinnati decided to play God again, this time by lopping off the opening theme of 'Cops' last night with commercials. It's unclear why, because the run-of-the-mill high school basketball game that was on before it ended before 'Cops' began (barely).

Admittedly unusual for a progressive populist, I dig the 'Cops' TV series. Well, I dig most of it except the bogus drug raids. And last night, the first segment of the 8 PM episode was another obvious frame-up, in which police set up a man by mailing pot to him.

It's kind of ironic that Channel 19's attempt to walk all over 'Cops' almost deprived viewers of seeing the police walk all over someone's rights. Like a moral panic type suing a rich entertainment corporation, it's another wingnut-versus-wingnut conflict, if you will.

Repeal DMCA? ('Pail Poll)

Well, you did pretty good on last week's 'Pail Poll: You voted 12 to 5 to repeal oppressive Taft-Hartley provisions that promote state work-for-less laws.

This week's 'Pail Poll deals with an issue that's of utmost importance if you care about the free flow of ideas. As you may know, the right-wing Digital Millennium Copyright Act was enacted after a rogue Congress rammed it through in 1998. A gimme to powerful corporations, the DMCA criminalized innovative technology that was previously legal and facilitated dubious fourth-party copyright complaints, among other things.

The effect of the DMCA has been to suppress art and science. The DMCA is also the reason some of the most entertaining and artistically or historically significant clips on YouPube keep vanishing. For instance, if the Viacom thought police so much as opens its spleezix yip about a clip that may or may not violate its copyright, that clip is gone from YouTube. Gone into thin air. (Often, the account of the person who posted it is gone too.)

Clips that are clearly protected by the longstanding fair use doctrine have been targeted.

The DMCA also resulted in the ban of a popular song whose lyrics featured the code of a program that could decrypt DVD's - even though no legitimate legal theory should allow even the program itself to be banned. (In fact, the program would not have been banned but for the DMCA.)

The DMCA is so, so dumb.

But now you can vote in our 'Pail Poll on whether to repeal this rogue law!

Burger King tells a whopper!

The idea that corporations do not take political stances is a myth. Not only do they donate to partisan political campaigns and openly rain praise on candidates (as Wal-Mart did for Elizabeth Dole), but they lobby extensively.

But Burger King denies it all.

The multipartisan Employee Free Choice Act is a much-needed federal bill that would ease workers' power to organize. Regarding EFCA, Burger King Corporation (BKC) denied taking any position. The fast food giant issued a statement saying, "BKC and its franchisees serve a diverse consumer base and, therefore, aim to remain neutral on political issues."

Oh yeah?

Contrary to this statement, Burger King had lobbied against EFCA. The burger chain spent over $300,000 lobbying against it betwixt 2006 and 2008. Through the National Retail Federation, it in effect provided more funding and militant opposition against the bill.

Goldman Sachs is a big Burger King shareholder. It too has lobbied against EFCA.

In brief, Burger King lobbied against a workers' rights law - then denied taking a position on this or any other issue. They're the home of the whopper, alright!

(Source: http://www.seiu.org/2009/02/breaking-burger-king-backs-off-opposition-to-employee-free-choice-act.php)

Bubble gum bunker blasts (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Gabillions of hard-working people have wondered how bubble gum would behave if exposed to unusual conditions. I know I have!

When I was a lad, a neighborhood playmate once suggested placing a piece of bubble gum over a hydrogen pump to inflate it with the lighter-than-air gas. But the fact that hydrogen is highly flammable put the kibosh on this plan. Similarly, I've always wondered whether one who swallows bubble gum can blow bubbles out their ass by farting.

That question remains unknown, but peep this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgjoasInwv0

That was a commersh for Hubba Bubba of rather recent vintage.

By the time of this ad, the famed Gum Fighter had long since been retired and had been replaced by animated chameleons.

The highlight of the ad is around :20. It appears that the chameleon who addresses the viewer blows a giant pink bubble out his butt!

But actually it's the other chameleon bubbling and floating away. This, however, opens up a whole new can of baste: Can Hubba Bubba be sued for false advertising because the product does not enable people to fly?

Surely there's some lawyer out there just itching to cash in on that!

Jindal won't let Louisianans get stimulus money

Well, you lost your job. That's bad enough.

But you better hope you don't live in Louisiana - where right-wing Gov. Bobby Jindal is declining stimulus money that would have expanded unemployment insurance coverage.

To put it in more straightforward terms, you won't be getting unemployment coverage, because Jindal has decided not to let you have it - even though your tax dollars paid for the stimulus package.

The money is supposed to be there for you, but he won't let you have it.

More plain old Republican meanness. That's all it is. Jindal can come up with every excuse in the book for his edict, but it boils down to his desire to throw his weight around.

We've seen this attitude before with Phil Gramm, George Allen, and a certain George W. Bush. I'm also reminded of when Tommy Thompson pulled Wisconsin out of federal antipoverty programs.

Right-wing Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says he's likely to follow Jindal's "lead." (Shocker!) Barbour's excuse is that he claims accepting the unemployment funds will force him to raise taxes later, but he never explains why. Besides, if that's his concern, he's a hypocrite - because it was Barbour who vetoed a bill that would have slashed Misssissippi's exorbitant tax on food.

In other words, Barbour is worried about taxing the rich, even as he allows the poor to be taxed back to the Stone Age.

Is there any doubt about the modern GOP's deliberate meanness?

(Source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/19092.html)

Former White House cat Socks dies

Socks was the Clintons' famous cat, as you'll recall. Today, Socks was euthanized at the age of 18. In recent years, he lived with Bill Clinton's former secretary near Washington.

I'll miss Socks. He was truly one of the great White House pets.

(Source: http://www.wcsh6.com/news/watercooler/story.aspx?storyid=100923&catid=108)

Governor wants teachers to work for free

Hasn't this guy ever heard of the Thirteenth Amendment?

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski is part of the DLC strain of the once-great Democratic Party, and he has seldom met a Republican idea he didn't like. (For instance, he strongly supported Oregon's version of the Patriot Act that was defined by the failed Sudafed crackdown.)

Now Kulongoski wants teachers to work for free. He says teachers should forego being paid this spring, to bring the state budget under control. At a news conference, the embattled governor told teachers, "You do it without pay."

And get this: As a sign of Kulongoski's royal arrogance, he acted like he was being the world's greatest altruist by proposing a pay cut for himself that isn't nearly as severe. He boasted that he'd cut his own $93,600 annual salary by 5% - which means he'd still be making more than teachers make even without a pay cut.

Gee, nobody's going to want to be governor if they only make $89,000 a year. (That's sarcasm!)

Not only that, but Kulongoski plans to give himself some days off - which teachers won't receive.

Hey, why don't we all work for free? Maybe instead of worrying about counting money, we can all just be paid with a bowl of soup and a cot each day.

But that would be silly, right? So why does Ted Kulongoski expect teachers to work without pay when he'll still get almost $89,000 a year?

(Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/02/kulongoski_to_teachers_work_fo.html)

LaHood wants subsidy for gas guzzlers

Tax gas. It pays.

Nobody likes paying taxes, but at least the gasoline tax hits hulking fuel guzzlers much harder. That's how it should be.

Now Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood - one of the obligatory Republicans in Obama's Cabinet - wants to replace the gas tax with a mileage tax, which would in effect subsidize gas-wasting vehicles.

Instead of paying based on how much gas you use, you'd pay according to how many miles you travel.

I wonder which Big Oil lobbyists suggested this cockamamie idea.

Right-wing officials in several states have already proposed a similar plan - in the hopes of soothing their own affinity for gas guzzlers. How would they accomplish this? In Massachusetts, right-wing officials have suggested requiring cars to carry GPS chips to track not only how many miles they travel, but also when and where they travel.

So it's not only an economic issue but also a Bill of Rights issue. This clearly violates the constitutional right to privacy.

This certainly doesn't help encourage America to move to fuel-efficient vehicles, does it?

(Source: http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_story.aspx?storyid=105777&catid=14)

The school that ate the neighborhood?

America's schools are no longer content with creating a prison-like atmosphere only at school. Now they try to keep students in suspended animation even away from school.

Suffice it to say, I've rejected the ideology that demands compliance with educrats' every demand. School handbooks often harp about parents' supposed responsibility not to question school policy. I'm wise enough to know better than to trust the school.

If a kid gets suspended from school, and the parents disagree with the suspension, what obligation do the parents have to do the school's bidding? None.

But a police commander in Chicago doesn't see it that way.

Regarding student misbehavior at one Chicago high school, the commander seems to have some rather strange suggestions for dealing with it.

For one, I don't see why the school has to call the cops every time some kid acts up. I graduated from an inner-city public high school, and I don't remember any misbehavior more severe than chewing gum or farting, so I doubt the discipline situation is truly out of control.

The commander says the school should give the names of all suspended students to the cops. Perhaps more gnawingly, he wants suspendees to be banned from within 2 blocks of the school.

Unless the school includes everything within 2 blocks, why?

Sorry, but the school doesn't get to control what happens away from school.

What if the student just happens to live less than 2 blocks from school?

The commander also demanded (you knew this was coming) school uniforms.

Welcome to the command state, folks.

(Source: http://theurbancoaster.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=190%3Athe-challenges-to-a-of-sullivan-high-school&catid=66%3Acommunity&Itemid=50&lang=en)

Under GOP, stimulus not so stimulating

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for the Obama administration's economic stimulus package.

But in areas as Republican-blighted as northern Kentucky, don't count on much improvement.

I checked the independent Stimulus Watch website, which lists "shovel-ready" projects that cities all over America have submitted in the hopes of winning stimulus funds. Here's the entries for Kentucky:

http://www.stimuluswatch.org/project/by_state/KY

Notice something?

There's not a single project in the 4th District. Not one.

There's dozens in Cincinnati - if you're able to commute. But none in northern Kentucky.

The Republican bosses in northern Kentucky didn't think the area needed any fixes to its crumbling infrastructure, I guess. They're too preoccupied with controlling everyone's sex lives or whether they drink beer in private.

At least this means Geoff Davis's obstructionism would have proven useless. Dracula Davis voted against the stimulus (of course), but there wasn't much in the 4th District for him to really vote against.

I think northern Kentucky may have missed out on a national economic bonanza - thanks entirely to its political leaders' priorities.

Another city abolishes year-round school

The key on the right-hand side of this blog should add another symbol: failed corporatist gimmick.

Ever since its initial rise, year-round school was destined to be one of the all-time biggest duds. To say that school systems switching to a year-round calendar was an answer in search of a question would be an understatement. This was an idea I knew would fail - and it did.

Year-round school has yielded no academic benefits, it has inconvenienced families, and it has almost certainly increased the prevalence of bullying and disease.

Although year-round school is a failure, you're not allowed criticizing it, of course. I was hounded off a message board a couple years back because I did.

The worshipers of year-round school who chased me off that site are lucky they don't live in Dayton, Ohio.

Despite public opposition, the Dayton school board adopted a 12-month schedule in 2005. But now it's proven to be such a disaster that Dayton is returning to a shorter calendar.

According to interim superintendent Kurt Stanic, year-round school hasn't served kids as well as the school board expected. Then what exactly did the school board possibly expect? Apologists for year-round school always try to make it sound like year-round school will cause schoolchildren to float happily through life and feel nothing but love forever. If they really thought that, then they were delusional.

Year-round school served nobody except our corporate overlords.

(Source: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090219/NEWS0102/902190412/1058)

GOP thug off the hook

James Tobin (not to be confused with an economist of the same name) is a right-wing consultant who led Bush's 2004 campaign in New England and was convicted of phone harassment for his role in jamming Democratic phone banks in the 2002 New Hampshire scandal. Tobin's involvement in that scandal led to him being named Conservative Fool Of The Day for 12/19/05.

This phone play was instrumental in juicing the election. GOP operatives illegally bombarded Democratic phone banks with hang-up calls to dash Democrats' get-out-the-vote efforts. One Democratic office received over 300 hang-up calls in just over an hour.

Tobin's legal fees were paid by the Republican National Committee, which insisted he was innocent.

Unbelievably, a federal court later threw out Tobin's conviction on appeal - not because Tobin was innocent (because he wasn't), but because the court said the law under which he was convicted "was not a good fit" for his crime.

Talk about judicial activism! A jury had already ruled that the law was a good fit. What's the point in even having a judicial system when courts can just overturn convictions that are entirely legal?

Prosecutors later charged James Tobin with the crime of making false statements. And a federal grand jury indicted him.

But now a federal court has dashed that case too. A judge has ruled that prosecuting Tobin is "vindictive", so the charges have had to be tossed.

Um, no. Prosecuting a criminal for a crime he committed is not vindictive. It's called justice.

There's not even any doubt that Tobin illegally jammed phone banks. Yet he can't even be punished for it. In conservaworld, crime pays.

Now the Republicans know they can get away with anything - at least if their party wasn't already pretty much near the end of its life.

(Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Former_RNC_director_convicted_in_phone_0220.html)

Tim's a travelin' man

I found out tomorrow that this year's annual fact-finding mission looms already. I know I just had the North Carolina outing, but that was last year's road trip.

A point of order: It counts towards my monthly Roads Scholaring commitment, because Scholaring is a key reason I go on these trips. Instead of visiting tourist traps and theme parks, I use roads just to be using them.

I would have liked a Peace Bike outing this month, but local weather has been horrendous, and even the cherished Peace Bike is not obligatory for a Scholaring. The trusty velocipede does not wish to repeatedly brave rain and ice, and would rather wait until the weather clears up. Even without the looming fact-finding mission, I performed a minor Scholaring this month in the form of my midnight adventure on Groundhog Day - though the Peace Bike was absent then too.

I feel like a long-distance trucker. Ever since I started this blog, I've worked each night of each trip - by writing up entries to post later. I'm all business. Before North Carolina, it was 15 months since my previous out-of-town trip.

My looming fact-finding mission will likely be in the northern region of the state of Georgia.

In the meantime, allow me to share with you a Roads Scholaring video from the North Carolina excursion:



After the daily stories lately about Sudafed logs and uniforms, a break couldn't come at a better time than now.

Have no fear, ish #451 is here!

Volume #18 of The Last Word has now beginned!

If printed out, the latest ish would be 6 pages, which isn't a bad catch these days.

What, dare you ask, does issue #451 of the long-running Last Word cover? Well, it talks about these items:

• Our "fuck you" to Yahoo!

• A laundromat that got picketed in a pee-related controversy.

• A legendary rock band playing our hotel conquering game.

• More details from our North Carolina fact-finding mission.

• A senator getting his, um, just desserts.

• More busted toilets.

• A nun's lecture over America's greatest pastime.

So point your bunker here for the latest irreverent Last Word:

http://bunkerblast.info/lastword/lw090219

Bush lawyer behind Facebook blunder

Bush may be out of office, but his cronies are scattered far and wide - like the old Contac commercial that showed the capsule releasing tiny balls.

The social networking website Facebook has been embattled lately because it introduced new terms of service forcing users to surrender intellectual property rights over their own content.

In 1999, when Yahoo! took over GeoCities and began decimating it, one of Yahoo!'s first acts was adding a similar provision to the GeoCities terms of service. The protest was so overpowering that Yahoo! was forced to relent.

I guess someone at Facebook didn't learn a lesson from that calamity.

Who could possibly be stupid enough not to learn from Yahoo!'s dumb mistake? Well, Facebook's new policy was masterminded by one Ted Ullvot - who used to work for the Bush regime under that master of matchbook law, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The uproar is so great over Facebook's rule change that it too is being rescinded.

Hopefully, Facebook learned its own lesson: When you see that someone has a connection to Bush, keep your distance at all costs.

(Source: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Former-Bush-Lawyer-Behind-by-Rob-Kall-090218-92.html)

Congressman may face recall

U.S. Rep. Joseph Cao is a Republican newly elected from New Orleans - but with only a plurality. (Hey, isn't 50% of the vote supposed to be required in Louisiana? Or is this rule ignored for Republicans?)

Already, Cao is one of the most unpopular members of Congress. Disdain for Cao was heightened when he voted against the stimulus law - despite constituents' support for the stimulus.

Amidst that vote, a recall effort has been launched against Cao. Supporters of the recall say Cao has "irreparably harmed" efforts by New Orleans to win federal aid.

To put it in franker terms, Cao - like the rest of the House's GOP caucus - is an obstructionist.

Conservatives are questioning whether Louisiana even allows elected officials to be recalled. However, they never questioned it when Republicans tried to recall Democratic officeholders in that state.

We in northern Kentucky need to launch a recall effort against the fartpipe Geoff Davis. Few other congressmorons deserve to lose their seat more.

(Source: http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/two_ministers_lead_recall_effo.html)

Man arrested for taking pictures

I think the next icon to add to the key here might be one for authorities surrendering to terrorism by using it as an excuse to bust folks for harmless activity that was once legal.

In New York City, taking photographs at subway stops is not illegal. Nor can it be, as it is public property, is open for the movement of people, and there'd be no compelling interest for such a policy.

Despite this, a 30-year-old man has been arrested for it anyway.

So much for the rule of law, huh?

I wonder if the cop who arrested him actually thought it was the law, or if he was just making it up as he was going along. If it was the latter, why? Was the officer afraid the camera might catch him doing something wrong?

If that's the case, it certainly doesn't reflect well on the cop's attitude.

This story is related to a much larger issue. Two times in the past 5 years, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority has proposed such a ban - citing terrorism as an excuse. In 2007, the city even proposed strict limits on filming along public streets - using the same pretext.

City officials aren't shy about letting terrorists win, I guess. As far as I'm concerned, those who proposed these regulations are guilty of treason, and should be prosecuted as such.

This incident isn't the first time the treasoneers have led to someone being falsely arrested in the New York subway system. The city had to spend over $30,000 in legal fees after police cuffed and detained a tourist who took photographs at subway stops. Apparently, the city didn't learn its lesson from this.

Unbelievably, police are pressing on with the charges in the latest case, even though no law was broken.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/nyregion/18about.html)

Eek! Nerf!

Chalk up "Nerfophobia" as another strange fear harbored by America's rightist educrats.

At Northland High School in Columbus, Ohio, a 14-year-old student has been suspended for playing with a toy Nerf foam dart gun. He may face expulsion.

The school district's excuse for possibly expelling him is that a federal law mandates expulsion even for look-alike weapons.

Fine. But a Nerf gun isn't a look-alike. Nobody would mistake it for a real gun.

Does it look like a real gun to you?

The school district also says it's allowed to use discretion in deciding what the punishment shall be. Yet it doesn't use discretion.

I thought I was weird for being afraid of headless mannequins when I was 2 years old - yet the Columbus school system is run by adults who are afraid of Nerf! I almost feel sorry for them for having to live with such an irrational fear of foam toys.

On second thought, I don't.

(Source: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/02/19/nerfgun_0219.ART_ART_02-19-09_B4_N3CVEHK.html)

GOP guvs may reject stimulus money

The legend for this blog ought to have a special icon for stories about the GOP brain trust putting ideology ahead of the interests of the public they're supposed to represent.

Several right-wing Republican governors are considering turning down money from the federal stimulus.

If you live in Alaska, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, or Texas, you might not see a dime from the stimulus - all because certain right-wing fools named Sarah Palin, Butch Otter, Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, Mark Sanford, or Rick Perry may decide not to let you or your state get any of this money.

We better hope a natural disaster doesn't hit any of these states. Sadly, there are few starker reminders of the need for the stimulus than a major disaster.

Granted, Republican states like these already receive more federal tax dollars than they pay out. But this money hasn't necessarily gone to projects that benefit average people. Even so, the 6 governors mentioned here will probably be begging for stimulus money once they realize they need it like all the other states. So their complaints today may amount to nothing but grandstanding for their copartisans.

(Also, notice that I didn't link to Yahoo!'s run of this story, because I haven't linked to Yahoo! since they started putting ads on their news articles again. That's what Yahoo! gets for ratting out journalists to authoritarian regimes.)

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g8-DEMtAE9q4i4ySQ0eV_qZefmRQD96EI3PG3)

Street View suit rejected!

Why should a populist blog cheer a corporation winning a lawsuit?

When the firm is being sued for not conferring special rights based on one's economic status, the usual rules are out the window.

Last year, an affluent couple in a posh Pittsburgh suburb filed a lawsuit against Google because its Street View feature failed to omit their street. They thought privacy rights meant that what was publicly visible on their street should not be photographed - even though Street View also features countless photographs from poor neighborhoods.

The couple sued despite the fact that they chose to skip Street View's method for having images deleted. In fact, Street View did delete their road when the suit was filed - yet the plaintiffs pressed on with the suit.

Now a federal court has dismissed this ridiculous lawsuit.

Neat how that works, huh?

(Source: http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/18739087/detail.html)

PNC squanders bailout money on exec bonuses

In the bailout jumble, the big banks have learned one thing: Ask, and ye shall receive.

They've also proven another maxim: Receive, and ye shall waste. At least if you're a big bank.

PNC Financial Services Group was a major recipient of federal bailout money. How is PNC spending this taxpayer dough? By giving its top execs - including its CEO - bonuses worth millions. The CEO gets a bonus of $3,000,000 - courtesy of American taxpayers.

If a bank was floundering so badly that it truly needed a bailout, why would execs even deserve a bonus? Especially one funded by taxpayers?

Talk about a reverse Robin Hood!

PNC also used bailout money to buy a smaller bank. So our tax dollars are getting used to foster monopolies too.

Oh, did I mention that PNC also has ties to the Bush royal family?

(Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN136517920090214)

Missouri House full of right-wing fucknuts too!

In the wake of the Indiana Senate's approval of a bill to steal the parental right to sue a school, this seems to be the Far Right's current cause celebre.

Now the Missouri House has voted 160 to 0 to pass a bill that would do the exact same stupid thing.

The unanimity in passing such incredibly idiotic bills lately is astounding. One saving grace is that the Missouri House has 163 seats, so perhaps there were 3 legislators who opposed the measure but knew it was futile to even show up to vote on it.

Who can blame them for thinking that? Other blogs have described the Missouri legislature in recent years as a veritable Disney World of Far Right activism and experimentation.

The Missouri bill was sponsored by Republican State Rep. Maynard Wallace.

With the House's approval of this bill, you can just see a school principal standing there, paddle in hand, sneering, "Ha ha, you can't sue me!"

That's not the only thing this bill does. It also allows public school districts throughout the state to suppress freedom of conscience by requiring the wearing of uniforms. (Hence the yellow icons for this entry.)

(Right now, state law permits uniforms only in St. Louis. Of course, having different rules for St. Louis was part of a right-wing gambit to lay claim to areas that were less likely to support a right-wing agenda. But if you wanted to make things equal statewide, the proper thing to do would be to prohibit uniforms in St. Louis as they were prohibited elsewhere - not expand uniforms outside St. Louis.)

I think it's time for a nationwide boycott of schools - a general student strike, if you will. With individual and family rights curtailed daily, I don't even see how it's possible to benefit from most American school systems today.

(Source: http://www.bnd.com/336/story/659545.html)

No census consensus

I shouldn't even be dignifying the wingnutosphere's mindless blatherings of late, but for me to expose them is more than just a hobby. It's a career.

The latest right-wing nonstory is the supposed power grab regarding the looming 2010 census.

If there's a power grab, it's certainly not by the Obama administration. The distinction the wingnuts keep making concerns whether the census director will report to the White House or to the Commerce Department.

Apparently, the wingnuts must have all slept and thrown paper airplanes throughout 7th grade civics. If they paid attention, they'd know that both are under the control of the executive branch, so it ultimately makes little difference.

As Homer Simpson would say: You don't know how big this government is! It goes all the way to the President!

If the wingnut brain trust is so worried about the census being tainted by politics, why didn't they raise a ruckus in 1990 when Mad Dog Bush vetoed a bill that would have made the census more accurate? This veto was politically driven - and it showed in the following reapportionment.

Or what about the many errors in 2000? Although that was in the Clinton era, Republican influence still loomed large. There were countless instances of small towns in Democratic areas being skipped entirely. There was one in Pennsylvania; one in Missouri; Supai, Arizona (in Havasupai Indian Reservation); and the entire Miccosukee Indian Reservation in Florida. The census counted zero people in all of these places, despite them clearly being inhabited.

My building was skipped - and it's in a Democratic city. As per the census website, I even called to have a census form mailed to me. I never received the form.

The media's cover-up of this political gamesmanship has lasted 9 years.

Furthermore, an activist federal court ruled that the census couldn't use a sampling method that would have made it more accurate, especially regarding the homeless and central cities.

Because of these obvious mistakes, the 2000 census should be considered null and void.

Amazing that the fuckheadosphere would have the nerve to accuse the Democrats of trying to juice the census, when the Republicans have done this very thing since at least 1990.

So a pigeon walks into a bar and... ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Ernie and Bert are cool.

And funny!

At least Bert thinks he is, as seen in an old skit I found in which he tells pigeon jokes. I vaguely remember seeing this sketch in the late '70s or so:



I can think of a few pigeon jokes that are just as funny that ol' Bert missed:

Q: Why did the pigeon look in the toilet?
A: Beakause! Get it? BEAKause!

Q: What does 'pigeon' stand for?
A: Pooping In Gutters Every Other Night!

Q: Why was the pigeon kicked out of the brothel?
A: He couldn't pay the BILL!

Eeh eeh eeh! Eeeheeheeheeheeh! (Patented Bert laugh.)

Later, in the '90s, there was an actress who had numerous sitcom roles who laughed just like Bert. Remember her?

This sketch is also one of the few Bert and Ernie segments that Bert actually won. That is, if your idea of winning is making an ass of yourself in public.

Teen frisked, arrested for texting at school

One blog observes that a 14-year-old girl in Wisconsin may be the first American ever arrested for texting.

At Wauwatosa East High School, police were summoned because the student was texting using her cell phone. She was promptly charged with disorderly conduct, and cops seized her phone - after frisking her.

What? No waterboarding?

A timely question: was the school too fucking lazy to deal with the matter itself instead of calling the cops? (Yes.)

In an era in which everyone is expected to have a cell phone, I don't see how the school can expect to have someone frisked and arrested for having one.

Now you know why I'm opposed to laws that rob parents of the right to sue schools, don't you?

(Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/14yearold_student_arrested_for_texting_in_0217.html)

A state law? Really???

I know I've been in this job too long when I start seeing stories like this. But I've got 30 years left until retirement, so...

Maryland State Del. Marvin Holmes Jr., a diehard DLCer, has decided he wants to follow the right-wing trail blazed by another DLCer, Nevada State Sen. Bob Coffin.

I told you in November that Coffin's pet cause is his effort to pass a state law requiring public schools to make uniforms mandatory. Now Holmes is attempting to do the same in Maryland.

Holmes has sponsored a bill to require school uniforms statewide - and make parents pay for the uniforms.

Does anyone not believe the purpose of this bill is to impose groupthink? One school district - which doesn't have uniforms but does have a rigid dress policy - already forces violators to don a shirt saying "Support the Dress Code", so is there any doubt?

Is there also any doubt that it was a good idea for me to switch to the Green Party?

If Holmes's bill passes, what about school districts that don't want uniforms?

And what about the sweatshop scandal the media bots continue to cover up?

America's future is on the line, and this is one issue that continues to spiral out of control.

(Source: http://www.herald-mail.com/?cmd=displaystory&story_id=216956&format=html)

Right-wing social engineering hits Kentucky

Gee, ya think?

Kentuckians are facing a lot of important issues: stagflation, a crumbling health care system, unemployment, broken schools.

But what issue is at the top of the agenda of State Sen. Gary Tapp (R-Shelbyville)?

Tapp doesn't give a shit about any of those things. His priority is his new bill to ban anyone "cohabitating with a sexual partner outside of marriage" from being an adoptive or foster parent.

it seems to be borrowed from a new Arkansas law - but very few other states seem to have such a law. (The Arkansas version is already facing court challenges because it's unconstitutional.)

Kentucky already has a shortage of potential foster and adoptive parents, so this certainly isn't the time for such a law. No time is a good time for such a law.

Tapp's bill isn't gay-specific, but there's general agreement that the bill was motivated by the fact that Tapp hates gays. Even so, it applies against unmarried people in general - gay or not.

What gnawing need is there for this bill? None.

This isn't exactly the type of bill that should win a "write-your-own-law" contest. If I had to write a bill to submit to the Kentucky legislature, I'd write one to increase the minimum wage or opt Kentucky out of Real ID. Social engineering serves nobody except those who think everyone else's private lives is their business.

I think maybe the legend for this blog needs to add another icon, this one for crackpot social engineering.

(Source: http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20090217/NEWS0103/302170043)

Bush rule would force books to be tossed

Americans my age grew up on books like 'The Foot Book' and 'The Man Who Didn't Wash His Dishes'. But these and other classics are about to be consigned to the memory hole.

When someone on the Internet mentioned that a new government rule would force children's books to be burned under the guise of cleaning up lead, I thought this was just an urban legend. I thought it was like the time talk-shit radio made up the story about the farmer who got jailed by Bill Clinton's EPA because he accidentally killed a rat with his tractor.

But nope. It's true, it's true, it's all true!

Last year, the Bush regime issued a rule saying that all kids' books in libraries and elsewhere that were written before 1985 have to be tested for lead or discarded.

Yes, I know: Lead in paper? As late as 1985, no less???

Congress had intended to prevent lead-laden toys from being imported into the U.S. It had no intention of letting one of Bush's agencies make everyone throw away books, of all things.

Of course, the media has waited until now to raise a stink about Bush's rule - as if it just now passed. And we all know why the media waited.

No library has the money to test every book for lead. Everyone knows this. So - because of this rule - Cincinnati's public library system is now required to throw away 1,200,000 books or bar kids under 12 from the library.

When I learned this rule was actually real and was handed down by a Bush agency, it was immediately clear it had nothing to do with getting rid of lead.

It's about censorship.

Why 1985? That year was at the midpoint of the Reagan era, but it just followed the heyday of the type of novels for young people that conservatives have long attempted to ban. Kids' literature (and other media) after 1985 has often been cheesy and sheepish. It's also true that scholarship after then has been tainted by right-wing politics.

Does anyone still think this story isn't about censorship?

If I still worked at my local library, I would refuse to throw away a single book under this rule. I am not going to be a party to right-wing book-burning. If they want to fire me, I guess they'd have to be parties to Bush's censorship by themselves.

The American Library Association asked for libraries to be exempted from Bush's order - and last week, the ALA won a reprieve. But next year, this battle is going to have to be fought again - on the media's terms, of course.

The America we knew growing up is slipping into the memory hole, and the talk-shit radio droids don't want to place the blame where it belongs. The cutoff date for censoring books is only a year off from the one this story evokes.

(Source: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090217/NEWS01/302170030/1055/NEWS)

DHS helped Maryland cops spy

The scandal surrounding the Maryland Police State Police's spying against antiwar and other activists just keeps getting worse and worse!

Now it turns out that Bush's Department of Homeland Suckyurity actually aided state police in their illegal spying program.

Well, I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

At first, it appeared that state police were classifying peaceful activists as terrorists and giving their names to federal authorities. But now it turns out that the opposite was also occurring: The DHS was spying on protesters and giving the information to state cops.

Now can we indict Michael Jerkoff?

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/16/AR2009021601131.html)

Disciplinarian Disaster Daniels

This story doesn't fit nicely into any of the categories covered in the key for this blog. One wonders if Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels isn't so out of control that he needs a category of his own.

Just prior to the Indiana Senate's approval of a Daniels-fueled bill to rob parents of the right to sue schools, Disaster Daniels gave his State of the State address, in which he outlined the rationale for his bill.

The embattled Republican governor declared, "It is time Indiana said to its children: sit down and hush up."

Damn. Talk about having a bad attitude towards kids!

This shows Daniels thinks of children as property, not as people. It speaks volumes about the mentality he harbors.

Personally, I have no problem with lecturing and punishing a serial bully who chooses to violate what was once a taboo against school harassment. But Daniels didn't say bullies; he said children. We all know he's not referring to serial harassers, because they're not the ones who are ever disciplined by schools anyway.

If a principal hits a kid with a wooden board, the kid's parents have every reason to sue. So if anyone needs to sit down and hush up, it's you, Disaster Daniels.

Missouri may require prescription for over-the-counter drug (sigh)

When a right-wing lawmaker in Georgia wanted his state to join Oregon in making over-the-counter pseudoephedrine drugs available by prescription only, it behooved me to point out that Georgia and Oregon aren't the ones who get to decide these things.

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act says what drugs are prescription, and what drugs aren't. Some right-wing state legislator doesn't get to decide that the laws don't apply.

Lawmakers in Missouri, however, haven't seemed to learn their lesson.

A bill pending in Missouri would do the same thing as in these other states: You'd have to visit a doctor just to be able to buy over-the-counter cold and allergy drugs.

The right-wing kook-a-loons are still out in full force, I see.

If the bill passes, it would increase waiting times and the costs for folks who only need a box of Sudafed. (It costs money to see a doctor, you know.) Like we expect the drug warriors to give a shit.

Emergency rooms are over capacity already. Think what it's going to be like when people start coming in just to get Sudafed prescriptions. It's already happened in Oregon.

(Source: http://www.kansascity.com/news/breaking_news/story/1037275.html)

DMV sued for disobeying marijuana law

It's a shame we had to blackball the L.A. Times because of Andrew Malcolm's hit piece that falsely accused Obama of making light of McCain's hand injury, but again I'm suspending this penalty.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles is now being sued because it doesn't even know what the state's laws are.

In California, medical marijuana is legal if you have a doctor's recommendation. Period. The DMV isn't allowed to suspend your driver's license because you use marijuana legally and do not drive under the influence of the herb.

So naturally, the DMV goes ahead and suspends their licenses anyway (even if the motorist has a perfect driving record).

This policy has become especially problematic in counties that think that the state law that permits medical marijuana doesn't apply there. One motorist was reportedly told that Glenn County doesn't "recognize those kinds of things." Recognize what things? Laws?

But now a lawsuit has been filed to force the DMV to stop its practice of investigating legal pot users.

Busted, DMV!

(Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dmv-medical-marijuana16-2009feb16,0,1613207.story)

The Conservative Fool Of The Day is...Marsha Blackburn!

Economic stimulus is a good thing. As long as there's no more massive bailouts for greedy banks, and if we can ensure the states don't throw stimulus money at abusive confinement centers, the stimulus package may be the nudge America needs to finally see some sustained economic improvement.

But far-right Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) sees life quite a bit differently from the way we in the reality-based community see it.

Last month, Blackburn appeared on Roger Hedgecock's right-wing radio talk-shit program. When discussing the stimulus, Blackburn said bicycle paths were an example of wasteful spending and that they don't create any public or economic benefit.

They don't???

OK, I get it, Marsha. In conservaland, life is supposed to be all about driving hulking gas guzzlers 30 miles out of town just to get groceries, and plowing down any transportation device that doesn't have a motor.

Blackburn's stance clearly wasn't about saving the taxpayers' money - because not building paths would waste money and gas in the long run. It was about letting the posh exurbs continue to lord it over everyone else. Just admit it, Marsha.

This isn't the only bizarre Blackburn statement lately. Regarding the new law that restores legal remedies against pay discrimination, Blackburn said it was "little more than an earmark for the trial bar."

Go look up 'earmark' in your 'Charlie Brown's 'Cyclopedia', Marsha.

With congressional districts specifically carved for right-wing ideologues like Blackburn, Congress will continue to be a source of fodder for this feature.

Icons, icons, and more good icons!

I've just added a new feature to this blog: icons to tell you what right-wing vice the story deals with.

I did this because it seems like we keep dealing with stories about the same embarrassing shit over and over again, and having to keep using the big banners puts people off. For old time's sake, I'll still trot out the larger banners every so often, but these small yellow icons are meant for repeated daily use.

At right, this blog now features a key to tell you what the icons stand for.

So peep and weep!

Child locked up for misbehaving at school

In Largo, Florida, a 7-year-old boy misbehaved at school. That's because he's, like, only 7.

In a free country, grade school children being unruly would not typically be a news story. But Florida isn't a free country.

The Sunshine State is the home of the much-abused Baker Act. Under this law, any person of any age can at any time be transported to a psychiatric ward almost on the say-so of any other person. If you snap your finger, point at someone, and say, "Lock 'em up," off they go.

And it's up to the facility to decide when to release the person. If some money-grubbing psych ward can get insurance money to keep somebody locked up, they will.

In the latest case, police came to the school and promptly transported the child to a mental ward - without his parents' permission. The boy spent the night alone at the facility before being released the following day.

Police say the youngster attacked a school administrator, but if that's what the school told the cops, I frankly do not believe the school. Not for a second. A lot of folks have been falsely accused of attacking school personnel, and they've been wrongly called liars when they denied it. Happens to everyone in that situation, it seems.

Local experts say that even if the boy did what the "official" story claims, the police taking him to a psych ward was still an abuse of the Baker Act, because he posed almost no real threat.

It turns out that on the very same day as this incident, the county's schools also had several other Baker Act lockups. Is the school system going to say with a straight face that there was a sudden pandemic of classroom misbehavior?

Welcome to the police state, folks.

(Source: http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/article975987.ece)

Repeal work-for-less laws? ('Pail Poll)

Well, you scored well on last week's 'Pail Poll: You voted 12 to 4 in favor of a federal law to prohibit corporal punishment in America's schools.

This week's 'Pail Poll deals with an important issue: so-called "right-to-work" laws. Or as I call them, right-to-scab laws or work-for-less laws.

Over 20 states hamstring workers with these laws. Work-for-less laws weaken unions and workers. These laws drive down wages, and they undermine workplace safety standards. These statutes accomplish this by forcing union workers to pay to represent nonunion employees.

Work-for-less laws didn't exist in America until the late 1940s, when the Taft-Hartley Act passed over President Truman's veto. This federal law authorized states to pass work-for-less.

This week's 'Pail Poll asks whether these provisions should be repealed.

And repeal them we should.

Indiana wants me

Indiana may want me - but PFC's Indianapolis branch and the Indy police sure don't.

Friday night, I was deployed to Indianapolis for a peaceful protest there against the Pathway Family Center cult - whose Cincinnati branch was already closed following protests by myself and many others.

I figured I'd probably have to go to Indy eventually, and since it's only a 100-mile drive, why not?

We got caught in a traffic jam on 82nd Street with my bladder fuller than I ever remember it being. But after I satisfyingly drained the main vein, we bipped over to PFC Indy and got to work! That branch of Pathway is deep in an industrial park in the northeast corner of the city.

The Indy protesters were actually a much more conservative bunch than our Cincinnati crew. But we share a common goal of closing Pathway once and for all.

This protest was designed to be short but powerful. And it started off fairly uneventful, though I recognized some of the program parents whose kids were moved to Indy from Cincinnati. One of them pulled up to us in her SUV, and she said, "You people are crazy!"

Another woman walked up to one of the protesters and accused him of dwelling on abuse that occurred 20 years ago. Actually, that protester has a son in the program now, who he's trying to have removed from the program.

One of the programmies emerged from the building and photographed us. Fine with me, because it's not like I had anything to hide.

I counted 18 demonstrators on our side, give or take a few. It's more than we had in Cincinnati, because there's a lot of people in Indy who aren't too pleased about Pathway's shenanigans.

We weren't out there for very long when - predictably - 2 police cars showed up. As we found out in Cincinnati, calling the cops on protesters is PFC's "policy." Despite the Cincinnati region's stodgy record, police near Cincinnati never gave us any real hassles though - a fact that infuriated the programmies to no end.

Indy was a different story. We saw the IMPD officers repeatedly entering the building, coming back out, returning, and reemerging with one of the program big shots. At some point, a third police car showed up.

The cops approached the protester who organized our event and lectured him about being on private property. This was true - but we had permission from the owner of the property we were on. Someone told me that the roads in the industrial park where we were are also private, but I'm about 90% sure this information is mistaken. (Even Street View has the roads.)

If we were about to be run off by the police, it was of little immediate consequence, because we were about to leave anyway. Our carload left while cops were still lecturing our organizer - but when we met for supper, we learned that police barred our organizer from ever being in that industrial park again.

He can't be on the roads, he can't go to the buildings, he can't be on the buildings' lawns even with owners' permission. Banned for life from the entire park. And yes, that's an Allowed Cloud!

I'm not going to say who our organizer was, because I don't want to keep dragging others into my commentaries here. I don't know if I should even be mentioning the police confrontation at all. Suffice it to say, however, I'm sure we would have all received the same order from the cops if they didn't think we had long ago bolted - because we were all doing the same thing during the protest.

How do you ban someone from a whole industrial park? Especially when the roads are probably public? At minimum, the roads are open for public access. And how do you ban someone after one of the buildings in the park actually gave permission to use their property?

Oh well. It just goes to show the type of totalitarian regime in Indianapolis these days. Trust me, if the cops had ordered me not to return to the industrial park, I would have found a way to someday return at all costs - and probably filmed my visit there like I did with NKU.

The government won't regulate teen "treatment" centers like Pathway - but they sure as hell regulate people who protest them.

This protest was another smashing success!

As we were in the car on the way home, I emitted a stinging, heartburn-fueled hiccup - my first in 21 years.

Indiana wants me. And I will go back there - until the PFC cult is cleansed from that state too.

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

Bubble Gum Plop (Bubble Gum Weekend)

I think I found a candidate for one of the most ridiculous children's toys ever to be marketed in this fine land. Yes, it's even sillier than the Domino Rally in which the plastic snaps kept breaking off of the dominoes.

And it's gum-related. You know, that stuff people bubble with.

The product in question is something called Barbie Bubble Gum Shop. Since this toy is almost certainly no longer being made, here's an absurd commersh for it from 1995:



What exactly was the point of this toy?

It appears to me as if all the Barbie Bubble Gum Shop did was crush pieces of bubble gum into festive shapes. But why buy a whole toy just to do that, when all you need to do is step on a piece of gum with a gym shoe?

Considering Barbie's popularity, I found very few substantive mentions of this toy on the Internet. I did find a detailed page describing the patent for the process by which the toy reshaped the wads of gum. I also noticed several folks were selling this "rare" toy - sometimes for less than $1.

Why couldn't people just stick with Tinkertoys?

Yet another agency investigates PFC

Pathway Family Center - which ran the now-defunct Kids Helping Kids cult in Cincinnati - is now under investigation by a second Indiana agency.

This time, the Division of Mental Health and Addiction is investigating the embattled program.

While we're on the subject, notice how when a Pathway "client" talks to the media, the reporter usually notes that it's one who Pathway "allowed" to talk. In other words, nobody can talk without Pathway's permission.

If that's not a telltale, automatic sign of a cult, what is?

(Source: http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/i_team_8/agency_inspects_teen_rehab_center)

Boy bruised by school paddling

Since we're on the topic of anachronisms in our so-called public schools...

In Decatur County, Georgia, a 9-year-old boy was bruised extensively when a school administrator paddled him 3 times in the same day.

"The main issue is not the paddling," the superintendent said. Um, well. Actually it is. He admitted himself that there's always a possibility of bruising when you take a wooden board to a child's buttocks.

If a parent administered corporal punishment that bruised a child, they'd probably be arrested (as they should be). But school administrators are a special class whom no statute controls.

I'm waiting for the lawsuit. Of course, if the Indiana Senate had their way, students who are abused by school personnel in this manner would be out of luck.

(Source: http://www.thepostsearchlight.com/news/2009/feb/13/boy-bruised-paddling)

Another outside survey about...just guess

It infuriates me to no end that public school uniforms are even an issue in America in 2009. But if you're bored with me writing about them, you have to stand up and be counted so uniforms are consigned to the toilet where they belong.

Uniforms don't belong in public schools, period. I've already given you many reasons why - in addition to the fact that public school uniforms are unconstitutional under Tinker v. Des Moines and the First Amendment.

The latest survey for you to fill out comes to us from Susquehanna Township near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. You can fill it out regardless of whether you live in that area:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=GDIFVUypmX4oRT5vh_2b_2bA_2bg_3d_3d

Meanwhile, Cleveland schools have just expanded their fascist uniform policy to cover high schools. If I didn't know better, I'd say a school district with that many students is just begging to be sued, but too many parents have been browbeaten.

This policy was implemented despite the fact that a survey of students showed strong disapproval.

If there aren't at least 10 lawsuits a year in Cleveland over this, then it kind of debunks the hallucinations about too many lawsuits against schools, huh?

What if?

What would your reaction be if you discovered I went to Indianapolis last night to protest against a cult?

Would you:

1) Jump for joy?

2) Crap your pants because of something I supposedly did wrong?

Remember, Indianapolis is only a 90-minute drive, so it's within striking distance. And the KHK cult's parent organization is still in business in that market. So did you really think I wouldn't still be on their case?

Think this question over, and maybe later I'll post some details.

Bush regime spied on credit card records

This story is from a couple weeks ago, but I had to put it on hold (which is what Bush forced many to do with their whole lives).

It turns out that - amidst revelations that Bush's illegal wiretap program spied on journalists and entire news agencies - this program also snooped at Americans' credit card records.

Bush's NSA collected all domestic communications, including phone and Internet. It combined phone data with credit card and bank records to build databases on American citizens. This program uses a highly questionable algorithm to paw through this data.

This despite the fact that regime officials claimed there was no surveillance of U.S. citizens.

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

Get ready, folks. We're going to be hearing more outrageous stories about the spying scandal for years.

(Source: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/nsa-whistlebl-1.html)

Lawmaker doesn't know what state he's in

In presidential elections, Virginia may have finally improved its standing over West Virginia. But at every other level, West Virginia still leads.

On most major economic matters, West Virginia's laws remain among the more progressive in America. West Virginia's activist conservative contingent also remains weaker than in Virginia.

But West Virginia Del. John Overington - a Republican - wants to change all that.

Overington has a cockamamie plan that he says would completely revolutionize the Mountain State. He's proposing a 1-page bill that would substitute Virginia's entire legal code in place of West Virginia's - almost verbatim.

"We would just adopt Virginia's statutes," Overington bragged.

In doing so, West Virginia would gain an oppressive work-for-less law and anti-consumer tort "reform."

John Overington and other Republicans tried this same gambit several years ago. Needless to say, it didn't pass. But he didn't learn, I guess.

When Overington's bill fails again this time, he plans to offer a specific work-for-less bill - which isn't likely to pass either.

The irony is that West Virginia was carved from Virginia during the Civil War largely because of political differences with Virginia. You've got a hell of a way to unwin the war, Ovie.

Uh, John? You're in West Virginia. Kindly act like it.

(And yes, Overington's physical resemblance to Captain Kangaroo has been noted.)

Attending "wrong" school brings felony conviction

Only in conservaland can a parent be convicted of a felony for enrolling her son in the "wrong" school district.

Not long ago, a woman from Clayton County, Georgia - where the right-wing school system is so bad that it lost its accreditation - decided to move to her sister's home in neighboring Henry County so she could enroll her teenage son in school there.

The result? A felony conviction. Prosecutors charged the woman and her brother-in-law of making a false writing - and they were convicted. Each of the defendants received 5 years of probation, a $1,000 fine, and 100 hours of community service, and were ordered to pay the Henry County school system the cost of back tuition.

What false writing did they make? If the teen lived in Henry County, how is enrolling him in school there making a false writing?

Are we going to prosecute every family that relocates in the hopes of finding what they believe is a better school system? That's exactly what happened here.

Also, I want to know what the big deal is about trying to attend an out-of-district public school, when the schools in your own district are deplorable. There's a few valid concerns, like tax dollars being spent to educate out-of-town students, but these concerns are pretty minor compared to the ravages of being subjected to a lousy school system. After all, schools not only spend money on each student, but also receive money.

Probably everywhere in America, there is "the school." Almost anyone who wants a public education is stuck with the school in their own district, no matter how bad it is.

The conservative "solution" has been to try to throw money at private schools instead. But conservatives have generally been opposed to letting kids attend out-of-district public schools. They like a captive audience. (If you think conservatives haven't opposed it, my experiences prove otherwise.)

This wouldn't be an issue if school officials would straighten up their act. But I guess they figure it's easier to hold kids hostage.

These days, America's schools often mean no future for our young people.

(Source: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/henry/stories/2009/02/07/felony_henry_school.html)

Frivolous defamation suit dismissed

You can't make this stuff up, people.

Last year, some right-wing nobody in Minnesota posted a clip on YouTube defaming Barack Obama.

But when people dared to criticize this video, this individual filed a defamation suit against these critics. He even tried to force Democratic Underground to disclose the identity of one of its users.

After tying up the courts for a year, I can tell you where that case went: nowhere. A federal judge has now dismissed the suit.

It was more or less a SLAPP suit: It was designed to bully critics by making them spend money defending themselves in court. Winning the suit probably wasn't even the plaintiff's goal.

So everyone's happy now, I guess.

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3733619&mesg_id=3733619)

4 Tennessee lawmakers prove they're sore losers

The right-wing crybabies just won't give up! They're funny when they lose, aren't they?

Now 4 legislators in Tennessee have joined a lawsuit to try to force President Obama to turn over his birth certificate and other documents to prove his citizenship.

The lawmakers are Republican State Reps. Eric Swafford, Stacey Campfield, Glen Casada, and Frank Niceley. When I saw this story, I just knew Campfield would be one of them. Some of you may recall that Campfield was the infamous "blogging legislator" who couldn't spell or form a complete sentence - which necessitated his fans proofreading each of his entries before he posted them.

What a lost cause this lawsuit is. Even the Supreme Court has already rejected an almost identical case. Not only that, but Obama's birth certificate (complete with a raised seal) was found long ago. In addition, a brief birth announcement from a 1961 newspaper has also been found.

The sore losers have no case. But it's fun to watch them have a meltdown because the election didn't go their way and they can't do shit about it.

Federal law allows plaintiffs and their attorneys to be fined heavily for frivolous cases. It would serve the crybabies right.

To make matters even more potentially humiliating for the sore losers, Swafford (one of the 4 legislators who agreed to be a plaintiff) abused House stationery to announce his intent to join the suit.

It must be nice to live in Tennessee if the most important thing lawmakers have to worry about is a frivolous lawsuit that doesn't accomplish shit except to soothe conservatives' Post-Election Derangement Obsession Syndrome.

(Source: http://tennessean.com/article/20090213/NEWS02/902130368)

Plane hits town; dozens dead

Another commercial flight has crashed in a residential neighborhood.

Last night, a Continental Express flight crashed into the small town of Clarence Center, New York. The fiery crash killed everyone aboard - and it also sent a house bursting into flames, destroying it as well. A local emergency official said, "It could have easily taken the whole neighborhood."

This story underscores an issue I touched on years ago - but which remains unresolved. Airline safety has become an issue not just for passengers and flight crews but for folks in their own homes.

Flight paths go over residential neighborhoods that are heavily populated but don't have the clout to fight the potential hazards - especially against the powerful airline industry. This could have just as easily happened to your city, your neighborhood, or even your home.

This follows the American Airlines crash just months after 9/11 that destroyed much of a Queens neighborhood.

In addition to other safety measures, I think it's time to take another look at remapping flight paths to keep tragedies like these from being repeated.

Will it take another Queens or another Clarence Center for the industry to act?

(Source: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/02/13/commercial_plane_crashes_into_ny_hamlet_killing_49)

Gregg nomination withdrawn

The DLC is crying in its baste, I bet.

Judd Gregg has just announced that he's withdrawing himself from the Commerce Secretary nomination because of "irresolvable conflicts" with the Obama administration.

Hopefully the next nominee won't be a Republican, for crying out loud. The Republicans lost for many reasons, you know.

This should also knock the wind out of the sails of the appeasers in the DLC who recommended Gregg.

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hwu7ZlKE7WeLk16elRjtCJD26tKgD96A96TG0)

HQ to the rescue!

For months, a request has been on tap for a video tour of this blog's worldwide HQ!

Other events forced me to put this project on the backburner, but today I finally fulfilled this request:



And so, the wait is over!

CBCS tries extorting money, fails

About a half-hour ago, I received a recorded phone call from an outfit called CBCS. The recording claimed it was trying to collect a debt from a person whose name I didn't even recognize.

Right away, I knew it was some sleazebag firm trying to extort money just like Wells Fargo tried doing.

The recording gave me a toll-free number to call CBCS back.

So I did. And when I did, I mashed my hand on the phone keypad to make sure their ears got my drift.

I looked for information about CBCS on the Internet and found this:

http://www.mcgath.com/cbcs.html

It turns out CBCS is indeed a scam. CBCS is some sort of rogue collection agency that goes after people for debts they don't owe, and calls them liars when they prove they don't owe it.

I also found this:

http://www.thenoiseboard.com/index.php?showtopic=180957

According to this, CBCS has begun claiming that failing to answer its calls constitutes acknowledgment that you owe the debt. Even if CBCS was an honest firm, there's still no legal basis for this assumption.

So they're not getting a penny from me. I'm not going to fall for this fraud.

When CBCS calls you begging for money, now you'll know they're scammers. Don't give them any personal information. Ever. And don't pay them a cent.

Hopefully the government won't give them a bailout like they did for Wells Fargo.

Drug law crapshoot

If you live near a school, you might see tiny street signs about "drug-free zones" or similar language.

These signs seem to be placed 1,000 feet from schools - a radius inside which enhanced penalties are supposed to apply for sale, manufacture, use, possession, mention, or thought of illegal drugs.

Nobody wants drug dealers to sell dope to schoolchildren. Actually, the drug warriors do, because their War on Drugs is a price support for drug gangs - but most people don't. The stated purpose of the drug-free zones is to go after those who sell drugs to kids.

Of course, things don't always work out the way people expect.

Like this week, I read about a case of a man in the Midwest who grew marijuana inside his own home for his own personal use. Was he breaking the law? Surely. (I'm not saying the drug war is effective or fair - because we all know it isn't.)

But there's no evidence he intended to use the marijuana for anything but his personal use, and certainly no evidence he intended to go out on the street and sell it.

However, prosecutors' eyes lit up when they discovered something about the man's home: It happened to be within 1,000 feet of a school. They salivated because now they knew they could throw the book at him and - kablammo! - make him another statistic of the failed War on Drugs.

Talk about some really bad luck!

How is this unfair? It's unfair because he's about to be punished much more severely than someone else would have been for the same offense - just based on the luck of the draw of where he happens to live. This despite the fact that his actions bore no connection to the supposed reason for the enhanced punishment.

It's a crapshoot. It's a rigged roulette game gone horribly awry.

I know I'm going to be unfairly attacked by programmies and their fellow travelers as "pro-drug" - all because I disagree with this inconsistency. But I'm used to it. Vocal supporters of due process such as myself have had to become acclimated to these attacks in recent years, as we're endlessly assailed under the new McCarthyism.

Yeah, I know, the guy broke the law. Well, due process still applies. I don't care to hear from types who think it shouldn't apply just because they feel like it shouldn't.

If prosecutors are going to be such sticklers about the 1,000-foot radius when going after someone who grew pot for his personal use, they should be just as tough on the dope pushers who hand out Ritalin in our schools.

Media misleads on vaccine suit

Vaccines are a good thing - but what goes into vaccines often isn't.

Today, a special court ruled against parents of autistic children who said that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine caused autism.

Immediately, the media and its collaborators used this as an excuse to lapse into attack mode against anyone who dares to question thimerosal - a mercury-laden vaccine preservative. They claim the ruling is "proof" that thimerosal is safe and that anyone who disagrees is out to sicken children.

I'd hate to rain on the media's parade, but the MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal - so this ruling doesn't suggest thimerosal is safe at all. In fact, the government had already acknowledged the dangers of thimerosal.

To deny thimerosal is dangerous is in the same category as denying climate change. Last year, regulars of right-wing website Free Republic assailed thimerosal critics - but that's to be expected from the same site where regulars also insist climate change is a hoax.

Even adults are urged not to eat tuna from mercury-filled streams. I once had a thermostat that had to be recalled because it contained mercury. If mercury is bad for adults to even be around, how can anyone think it's a good idea to inject babies with a vaccine that contains a mercury-laden ingredient?

To that question, the response from the thimerosal industry's fellow travelers is that scientific literature contradicts thimerosal's critics. They never say how. Somehow I doubt scientific literature urges people to inject mercury into their bloodstreams.

I have no doubt that autism also has additional causes besides thimerosal. That doesn't make thimerosal any safer.

Science took a beating at the hands of media talking heads today.

Scarborough smacks down GOP

Political historians say that you know a political party is dying when it starts to be dominated by extreme elements.

And when I say the Republicans lately have gotten extreme, man, do I mean extreme! Even more so than before.

Right-wing MSNBC host and former Florida congressman Joe Scarborough has been bandied about lately as a possible Senate candidate in Florida.

In absolute terms, most people would consider Scarborough extreme. He was one of a select crowd of congresscritters who symbolized the authoritarian extremism of the 1994 Republican revolution.

But is Mr. Morning Joke extreme enough for today's GOP?

Well, this week, Scarborough was interviewing Obama's Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, when Gibbs asked him if he was going to be the Republican nominee for Florida's Senate seat.

"Here's my problem, Robert," Scarborough replied. "I don't really think it would be good to run in 2010 with a party that is actively associating itself with the Taliban."

Ooooooooh, did he say that?!

For once, Scarborough was right. After all, the Republicans are the home of Bill Frist and of Florida's own Mel Martinez, both of whom urged that the new government of Afghanistan include Taliban members.

Scarborough's statement seems to be referring to recent remarks made by right-wing Texas congressmoron Pete Sessions, who already had a record of extremist fartpipery and nastiness. Sessions boasted that he and his fellow Republicans were borrowing their legislative strategy from the Taliban. Sessions spoke lovingly about how the Taliban "went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes." He went on to say that "insurgency may be required" if the Democrats don't buckle.

The Republican Party isn't just only regional now in its support. It's flat-out dying altogether, and this proves it. In some areas, the Greens already outpoll the Republicans, and it ain't getting better for the GOP.

Employers block unemployment benefits

In Coprorate (sic) America, the scumbaggery never ends, does it?

With unemployment at the highest rate since the Depression, Big Business pulls out all the stops to make sure the unemployed don't even get the benefits they deserve.

Over a quarter of Americans who apply for unemployment are now having their claims challenged by their former employer. In fact, some companies have a policy of challenging every single claim.

How??? And why???

Greedy employers do this because their unemployment insurance rates are based on how much in benefits their former employees collect.

Follow the money, folks, follow the money.

My advice for the employers who challenge workers' claims? Suck. It. Up. Once a person is no longer working for you, you have no business trying to keep them from getting unemployment aid.

This doesn't even account for all the folks who are ineligible for unemployment right off the bat. People who are fired for alleged misbehavior aren't even eligible. So your employer can falsely accuse you of stealing from them, and you'd be out of luck. And with the current system, they'd have an incentive to make a false accusation like this.

And some employers do lie when filing their challenges. They make false allegations against former workers, and with such a stacked system, this strategy works surprisingly well.

It doesn't help matters that courts have taken it upon themselves to expand the definition of worker misconduct. Thirty years ago, minor accidents would likely not have been considered misconduct. Today, with a court system based on matchbook law that's hell-bent on coddling Big Business, it likely would be.

The whole system is based on what the employers want, isn't it? Or O the world will end.

Maybe the government needs to take away employers' power to challenge unemployment claims.

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/11/AR2009021104311.html)

Teen sent to wilderness camp over MySpace parody

The judicial corruption scandal in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, widens.

Not only are several judges accused of taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send juvenile defendants to abusive privately run programs. It turns out teenagers were sent to these programs for things that weren't even crimes.

One teenager was sentenced to a wilderness camp for the "crime" of making a parody MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal. The teenager did not have an attorney and was not informed of her right to have one.

That's exactly like if I had been locked up for a certain BASIC computer game I wrote. (Yes, the "...is a jerk" one.)

Is there any denying the United States had become a banana republic?

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h88VgykKcn87UozOYaETJS6yufvgD969ICM80)

Right-wing losers more delusional than ever

With Obama being clearly the most popular President of my lifetime (which he'll continue to be unless he consistently caves to the DLC), I can't believe the fuckheadosphere is serious about their latest boast.

They're actually insisting the Republicans are going to regain control of Congress in 2010.

You know what I have to say about that?


I usually don't say this, but let's just ignore these delusional poor sports from now on - unless of course they say something else just as unintentionally hilarious (which you know they will).

The wingnutosphere has been ground so finely into background noise in the past few weeks that one wonders if the loser party is ever going to regain Congress.

Right-wing war on voting upheld

A few years ago, right-wing lawmakers in Georgia passed a law designed to suppress voting by introducing onerous identification guidelines.

Its apologists claimed the law was needed to protect election integrity - but the law prevented legitimate voters from voting. There's no evidence it blocked even a single ineligible voter.

The new law blocked eligible voters, as many who did not own cars couldn't get to the courthouse to update their ID's. And if they used their full middle name on their voter registration card, but just a middle initial on their driver's license, they would be turned away at the polls.

However, the Federalist Society whack-a-doos on the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar Indiana law last year.

And this month, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals used this spurious ruling to uphold the Georgia law.

With the courts relying on Federalist Society matchbook law instead of real law, I think it's time Congress steps in. Congress needs to pass a federal law to undo voter identification guidelines that are designed to suppress the vote.

(Source: http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/01/15/voterid.html)

Everything within the school, nothing outside the school

It's hard to see how today's parents can even raise responsible, self-governing young people - because the schools get you when you're 5 and don't let go until you're 18.

This latest idea is one of these that appears outrageous at first, less so upon examination, then even more so than before upon further scrutiny.

In Kentucky, right-wing State Rep. Adam Koenig (R-Erlanger) has introduced a bill that would make parents pay a fine if they don't show up for school conferences.

I think a similar idea may have been activated in one or two other states, but the concept is far more precarious than it appears. Where does surrendering every aspect of life to our often fascist schools stop?

As much as I'd like every parent to take an interest in their child's education, I think it crosses the line to fine every parent who doesn't want to hear the principal groan every time their child wears the wrong color of socks to school.

I just got done telling you about how Kentucky Republicans rejected a bill against cyberstalking, apparently under the guise of "smaller government." Yet they support fining people for not showing up for school conferences?

What's next? If this trend continues, it won't be long before parents are penalized just for criticizing school officials even away from school. Already it seems like it takes an act of Congress just to sue a school, and schools aren't shy about defending their so-called "right" to release students' academic records (which violates federal law). Where does this oppression end?

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/news/local/story/Bill-Would-Fine-Parents/5vH5buAAM0aOtKZnUswZ7Q.cspx)

Kentucky may pass cyberstalking bill

Few criminals are more evil than the cyberbully.

I scoff at those who say we can't prosecute online harassment. Phone harassment has been illegal since probably Alexander Graham Bell's day, so why are Internet harassers mollycoddled?

Nationwide, there have been more than a few teenagers and others who were driven to suicide by online harassment. The laws in Kentucky though are too weak to effectively go after harassers.

Republicans like it fine that way.

Last year, a cybersafety bill that could have helped authorities bust such harassers passed the Democratic-controlled Kentucky House by an overpowering margin. Naturally, however, the Republican-controlled Kentucky Senate refused to approve the bill.

But now, the House is giving the bill by State Rep. Johnny Bell (D-Glasgow) another try.

If only there was a law like this a dozen years ago. But serial cyberstalkers considered any restrictions on their actions to be a violation of their True Free Speach Now (tm). This argument is absurd: It's exactly like claiming the phone harassment statutes are a violation of free speech.

In a society, there has to be standards.

(Source: http://bluegrasspolitics.bloginky.com/2009/02/11/cybersafety-bill-slated-for-house-committee)

Cry me a fucking river, Mitch

Now Disaster Daniels is mad because President Obama didn't invite him to the town hall meeting in Elkhart.

BOO HOO HOO!!!!!

Grow up, Mitch, will ya?

This is going to go down in history like the time Newt Gingrich threw a fit because President Clinton wouldn't let him ride in the cockpit of Air Force One and play with the controls.

(Source: http://www.indystar.com/article/20090211/NEWS05/902110392/-1/NEWS)

Big Bird ruins Mr. Hooper's invention ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

Because a power outage is all but certain here today, this installment concerns a little Big Bird-induced outage that occurred on 'Sesame Street' back in 1969 (the year the show debuted).

This segment was before my time, but it's amusing nonetheless. In this sketch, Mr. Hooper - the now-deceased storekeeper - built a magical machine that could produce 10 of any object just by pointing an arrow at it.

In other words, if you point the arrow at all of Saxby Chambliss's brain cells, you get - well, no brain cells, because any number times zero is still zero. Still, it was a nifty invention.

But, as Big Bird proves, the larger the object, the more trouble Mr. Hooper's machine has reproducing it:



Oscar the Grouch might have been pleased with the emergence of 10 trash cans, but Mr. Hooper's machine wasn't. Reproducing such a large object utterly destructimated the brand-new machine.

Note that the ol' Hoopster appears ready to cry after Big Bird stupidly destroys his beautiful invention.

Notice also that Big Bird was more of a clownish character back then and not the 6-year-old professor he is today. His head was smaller, his beak was longer, and his voice sounded like Goofy.

Let's bring back those hilarious old days of 'Sesame Street'!

Indiana Senate full of lugnuts

It looks like the entire Indiana Senate has just proven themselves to be a bunch of backwards idiots.

Today - yes, in 2009 - senators voted 50 to 0 to approve a bill to help shield school employees from lawsuits when their "discipline" is unreasonable.

And because Indiana remains one of America's leading pupil-battering states, it often is unreasonable.

Who was the fucking idiot who came up with this bill???

It was sponsored by right-wing State Sen. Teresa Lubbers (R-Indianapolis). But it was backed by...guess who? Gov. Mitch Daniels, of course.

Disaster Daniels - Indiana's Energizer Bunny of bad ideas - strikes again.

And how in the fuck did this shit pass unanimously? I used to think America had a two-party system, but I guess not.

It wouldn't have passed 50 to 0 if I was an Indiana senator. That's a guarantee. If you're an Indiana senator today, you're supporting child abuse by backing this law. That's all there is to it.

Lawmakers complained that schools are threatened with too many frivolous lawsuits. America's Nazi-like schools, however, consider every lawsuit to be frivolous - if it's against them.

There aren't too many lawsuits against schools. In fact, there aren't nearly enough.

(Incidentally, the Indianapolis Star's website has already been freeped by child-hating extremists who support the new law. As an added indignity, some of their posts are racist. Big surprise.)

(Source: http://www.indystar.com/article/20090210/NEWS05/90210035)

More Bushstink reversed

Now that he's retired and in disgrace, Bush is finally learning the hard way that he can't rule by decree and expect it to last forever.

A Bush edict had rescinded an earlier government rule that supported collective bargaining in large-scale federal construction projects.

But now President Obama has reversed Bush's order and restored the previous pro-worker guidelines to favor collective bargaining.

Bush really thought he could weaken workers and depress wages forever, didn't he?

(Source: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D966B9R80.htm)

Another power outage planned

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports: "Duke Energy said Tuesday it is preparing for a new round of power outages from the high winds forecast for Wednesday ..."

Yeah, I bet they are.

The only thing they're preparing for is finding an excuse to raise our rates again - like they did after the September blackout.

(Source: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090210/BIZ01/302100048/1055/NEWS)

Bip!

A few of you are already asking why I oppose the current exurban power grab in Campbell County, Kentucky, after I allegedly endorsed some of its backers for public office in the '90s.

Because I didn't endorse them, geniuses - except maybe against other Republicans in their party primary, which I wasn't able to vote in anyway, because I'm not a Republican. And it's not like my recommendations carry much weight among Republicans anyhow.

And I'm not saying these individuals were wrong about absolutely everything their whole lives. I appreciate some of the things they did regarding other issues, because they weren't necessarily right-of-center in those cases like they are this time.

But on this matter? Let me just say this: If you're not from Campbell County and don't know about all the class warfare here, then trust me, you probably don't want to know.

Georgia funds grade inflation hoax

It's nice to know that taxpayers in the state of Georgia are being forced to subsidize a study that pumps up the long-discredited grade inflation hoax.

There is certainly some grade inflation in America's schools - but almost all of it benefits student athletes who'll be kicked off the team if they get poor grades. That, however, isn't the kind of grade inflation that ever gets exposed.

At issue here is the made-up type of grade inflation. You know, the kind that supposedly inflates the grades of every student and "proves" they're not meeting the rigorous demands of today's corporate-backed education system.

The media has yelped about this alleged grade inflation for years - but it's a hoax. The fact is that there is no such general pattern of grade inflation in American schools. None.

The Georgia report claims that some high schools reward excellent grades to students who fail standardized tests in the same subjects. The implication by the state, the media, and "experts" is that schools are too easy.

High school easy???

Really???

Did the writers of this study even go to high school to find out?

I'm a guy who's written some computer programs that are at least passable and drawn several professional-quality biking maps. But when I was in high school, I rarely saw any grade above a 'D' - at least not in most of the 5 years I was in high school.

Maybe the schools aren't too easy - but the state-mandated standardized tests are too hard.

I know a lightning bolt is probably going to sear me alive because I said that - for standardized tests have become the national religion, and I just blasphemed it.

This state-sponsored worship of standardized testing is especially strong in Georgia: The standardized exam - called the End of Course Test - composes 15% of a student's grade.

And these tests are never considered wrong. Ever. The world is supposed to stop spinning for these oh-so-perfect tests.

Grade inflation is a hoax, but Georgians are having their tax dollars wasted to put out bullshit reports that fan this fraud. Unbelievable.

(Source: http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2009/02/08/eoct02081.html)

Exurban power grab hits home

Campbell County, Kentucky, is one locale where working-class city-dwellers can count on a lot of grief from wealthy exurbanites. Gobs of it. I know this, because I've lived here almost 36 years.

County politics in recent decades have been defined by one long power grab by affluent right-wingers in the outer suburbs. This class war has been allowed to fester and grow inward even into the cities.

Campbell County has 2 county seats: Newport and Alexandria. County services are split between the 2 courthouses, and some services are found at both, for the convenience of the public. Some 130 years ago, the county imposed a tax on the northern part of the county to build the Newport courthouse. That tax remained until just last year - although by then it was a relic, much like the Spanish-American War tax on phone bills that wasn't repealed for a century.

This was the only tax like this in recent times in Kentucky. Throughout the state, courthouses were funded equally by all state taxpayers - except in Campbell County, which imposed an additional tax on more urban and less affluent areas. The tax was abolished last year under a law sponsored by Democratic State Rep. Dennis Keene - but the Republicans fought him tooth and nail.

Why would the self-styled party of lower taxes fight to keep a tax? Simple. The Republicans are the party that gave us the war on the cities. They disdain anything that's working-class.

The exurban intelligentsia's latest urban legend is that Campbell County has only one county seat: Alexandria. It's simply not true. The Cincinnati Enquirer correctly states that Alexandria is a seat - but it ignores the fact that Newport is too.

Even the Census Bureau acknowledges that we have 2 seats:

http://www.thinkkentucky.com/edis/deskbook/files/landarea.pdf

Because the exurban elites lost their battle to force the cities to keep paying an obsolete tax, they've shifted their attention to filing a lawsuit to move all county offices out of the Newport courthouse - forcing folks in the northern part of the county to take a bus 15 miles out to Alexandria just to get a building permit or renew an ID.

The opulent outer suburbs are no longer content with sharing public and private functions with the cities. Now they want the cities to have nothing, just for its own sake.

Northern Campbell County paid a courthouse tax for 100 years longer than they needed to, and now they might lose the courthouse they paid for - all because of some cockamamie anti-city tantrum.

A new bill by Keene is designed to counter this by allowing counties to move offices outside the county seat - so there could still be a courthouse outside Alexandria. However, I don't see why this is necessary to save the Newport courthouse, as there's general agreement that Newport is also a seat.

The city is the reason suburbs and their associated wealth can exist. What's going to happen if Newport is allowed to become just a hollowed-out ghost town?

(Source: http://nky.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20090210/NEWS0103/902100357)

DeMint introduces national work-for-less bill

If any senator was to sponsor a federal work-for-less bill, Jim DeMint would be the prime suspect. He's a right-wing fuckhat, so why wouldn't he?

And sure enough, DeMint did introduce such a bill back on January 22. (I didn't discover this until now, because it's not the type of thing the media wants people to know about him.)

Inaccurately called "right-to-work" laws by supporters, some states (especially in the South and West) have these rigid laws to weaken unions and workers and to depress wages. But under DeMint's bill, states would lose their power to forego such laws.

All this after DeMint claimed to be a champion of states' rights and smaller government. He tries to come across as America's small-government superhero, but then he gives a snooty speech defending work-for-less laws.

(Notice I didn't mention the "right-to-work" cult's phony YouTube videos that use bad actors to portray blue-collar workers. Sort of like how a certain teen "rehab" cult uses bad actors in its clips to portray parents.)

Another Nazi school system

The right-wing "zero tolerance" assholes are off their rockers again - this time in the Cherry Creek school district in Colorado.

A 17-year-old high school senior who is a student leader of the Douglas County Young Marines has been suspended from school for 10 days because of drill props in her car. She may still face expulsion.

The objects that got her in trouble were models of guns made of plastic, wood, and duct tape. The items were for her drill practice.

School officials knew they weren't real guns - but just didn't care.
They didn't even look like guns, because of all the duct tape. Nobody with any sense would consider these props to be a cause for concern - but school officials have no sense.

If a student was going to shoot up the school, they wouldn't have used wooden gun props and yelled out, "Bang!" They would have used real guns - not the props found in the student's car.

The school's excuse for punishing the teen is bullshit. A school district official said federal and state laws mandate long-term suspension or expulsion because "the law doesn't make any distinction between a genuine weapon and a facsimile." Wrong. If that was the case, even more kids would be getting kicked out of school.

You know the school's rationale is malarkey, because after the school called the police, the cops told the student to reclaim the gun props shortly thereafter. If the law didn't distinguish between real guns and props, the police would have likely charged her.

When are schools going to start being sued again over "zero tolerance" idiocy?

RNC chairman investigated over payments

Michael Steele was the Conservative Fool Of The Day for 3/2/06 because of his idiotic rants, such as the time he compared stem cell research to slavery and Nazi medical experiments - and because he took over 20 personal and political trips on state time as Lieutenant Governor of Maryland.

One of the major differences though between the Democrats and the Republicans is that scandal-tainted Democrats are usually treated as pariahs by their own party. (Just ask Rod Blagojevich.) But scandal-tainted Republicans are allowed to levitate to the party's highest positions.

Such is the case with Michael Steele, who was recently chosen to serve as chairman of the Republican National Committee.

In his new position, Steele is just as moronic as ever. Like the other day, he attacked Obama's economic plan because it might (gasp!) create jobs. Steele complained, "What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work."

George Stephanopoulos replied, "But that's a job."

But Steele responded, "No, it's not a job."

Then what is it? If it's creating work, it's a job!

Already, after only a week or two as RNC chairman, Steele is already facing a federal investigation. It seems that during Steele's ill-fated Senate bid, he arranged for his Senate campaign to pay a defunct company supposedly run by his sister for services that were never performed.

Oops.

Republican contributors ought to be boiling mad that their candidates waste campaign funds on things like this. But they never learn, and they keep on giving to the GOP.

Oh well. At least Republican supporters are now wasting their own money for a change.

(Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/RNC_chairman_under_paid_sister_for_0207.html;
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/9/61149/10755/537/695101)

DEA forced to kick its habits?

The Drug Enforcement Administration is likely the most corrupt agency in the entire federal government - and that says a lot.

The DEA has no objection to exploiting political changes to soothe its own inner turmoil. Only 2 days after President Obama's inauguration (which was before Attorney General Eric Holder could be confirmed), Bush holdovers in the DEA thought they could send a message by raiding a California medical marijuana dispensary. (Obama had pledged to halt these rogue raids.)

The raid was carried out despite the fact that medical marijuana is legal in California.

If I was the sheriff of that county, I would have had the DEA agents arrested on sight for interfering with lawful activity of California citizens.

After that episode, the DEA carried out more raids in the Golden State - without even notifying local police.

(This reportedly followed a Bush-appointed assistant U.S. Attorney's threat to file charges against public officials if they didn't pass their own laws against the dispensaries.)

But now the DEA's lucrative lawbreaking is all crashing down. The Obama administration said last week that these unlawful raids are about to screech to a halt as Bush droids in the DEA are replaced.

How long will this take? After bad habits have been permitted to pervade the DEA for years, it's hard to say. Remember, it's not just Bosh's stench that has to be cleaned up. The Clinton years were also unfriendly to states' powers to legalize medical marijuana.

After a dozen years of federal tyranny on this matter, it's satisfying to see the return of local autonomy.

(Source: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/white-house-dea-raids-medical-marijuana-states-will-stop)

Dumb right-wing quote of the day

Since we've been on the topic of school discipline lately, I thought I'd share this with you.

Mike Shambre is an elementary school principal in Ohio who told his local newspaper, "I'm not a believer in beating kids, but, hey, it worked for me."

Beatings worked for you, Mike?

What a clod.

Shambre was expressing disgust over a possible statewide ban on paddling in schools. Oh, so he is a believer in beating kids, evidently.

(Source: http://www.nospank.net/n-s13.htm)

RNC protester wins settlement

Don't welcome the next Republican National Convention anywhere near your city - unless you like your town being deeded out to these little dictators. At minimum, the past 3 GOP conventions have turned their respective cities into prison camps where no dissent is allowed during the event.

Last year, the city of St. Paul required the Republican National Committee to buy insurance to cover legal fees. This shows that the city had obviously intended on starting trouble with dissidents.

True to form, the city has now had to pay out $5,000 to an antiwar protester who was illegally detained by police for the thoughtcrime of handing out leaflets outside the convention hall.

And get this: This unlawful detention wasn't even during that comedy routine known as the Republican National Convention. It took place 3 months before the convention and promoted a march to protest it.

It sounds like the Republicans no longer "own" cities just during the convention, but the rest of the time as well.

Because this incident happened before the convention instead of during it, the settlement probably doesn't come out of the insurance the RNC had to buy, but directly from city coffers. So taxpayers are paying for the city's fascism.

As if you needed any more reasons not to want the next convention in your town.

(Source: http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/39226432.html)

Ah! Another 'Pail Poll! Ew!

Well, you got a good grade on last week's 'Pail Poll. It asked whether the government should limit the pay of executives of banks that receive federal bailout money. You voted 15 to 2 in favor of this idea.

OK, who's the 2 wiseasses who voted no?

This week's 'Pail Poll concerns an idea that comes up every so often but never generates the interest it should.

With Ohio appearing increasingly likely to ban corporal punishment in its schools, our survey asks: Should there be a nationwide ban on school paddling?

Once in a while, a bill that would in effect do just that is introduced in Congress. If these bills had passed, schools that accept federal tax dollars (which probably includes every public school in America) would not have been allowed to use corporal punishment. Inexplicably, these measures never passed, even though almost every other country outlawed paddling at least 20 years ago.

The Campbell County Schools in my day didn't exactly prove corporal punishment's effectiveness, did they?

Boy brings deactivated gun to school following harassment

Our friends north of the border are now plagued by what is seemingly a suburban American export: serial bullying.

In Toronto, a 12-year-old boy took a deactivated gun to school because of serial harassment that the school wouldn't do anything about for years. The youngster was reportedly "at his breaking point" and intended to scare the aggressors.

The barrel of the gun had been welded shut. The gun was no more than a club with a handle.

Outrageously, prosecutors charged the 7th-grader with numerous weapons offenses.

Why were charges filed against him at all? No charges were ever filed against the spoiled brats who harassed him.

That'll teach him never to fight back again. Now school officials will probably drug him and slap themselves on the back for creating another "manageable" zombie.

Meanwhile, the bullies will grow up to be incompetent school principals, right-wing politicians, phony ministers, corrupt businesspeople, inept patronage employees, and crooked lawyers. It's the same story I've seen played out in my area countless times.

(Source: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/02/06/boy-12-who-brought-gun-to-school-wanted-to-scare-bullies-prosecutor.aspx)

Formal complaint filed against teen "rehab"

The notoriety of Pathway Family Center - of which the Kids Helping Kids cult was a part - is gaining ground in Indiana.

Now a man has filed a formal complaint with the Indiana Attorney General claiming his 17-year-old son is being mistreated at PFC's Indianapolis branch. According to the complaint, the program practices sleep deprivation, provides substandard housing, and forced a teenager to miss a whole year of school.

It also turns out that PFC has just signed a deal with the state of Indiana to counsel kids through the court system. That has Disaster Daniels's fingerprints all over it, doesn't it?

There's nothing worse than an abusive program having a state contract to forcibly "treat" teenagers.

(Source: http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/local/Father_Son_mistreated_at_rehab_center)

Gum that's made to be swallowed! (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Unless you like your underpants being ruined by the sticky goo, you probably know that most gum is not designed to be swallowed.

But now I've learned that the makers of a product called Candilicious tried to change all that. I don't remember this product, but apparently it was like gum except you were supposed to swallow it.

As this product appears to no longer exist, here's a clip of one of its commercials from 1987:



It's a catchy little commersh, but it didn't explain that the product was actually gum. If it did, I'm sure Candilicious would have been an instant smash, because there's not a single person who's ever lived who's hated gum. But then again, it might not have been such a hit, because swallowable gum was not a high priority among most gum enthusiasts.

Silly me. Until now, I thought the only swallowable chewing gum was the pork roast I had at a family wedding once. Actually maybe not, because it was so tough that I had to spit it out in the toilet.

Yes-fly list

This is yet another story that underscores the rank absurdity of the no-fly list.

The U.S. House has now approved by a vote of 413 to 3 legislation that would create a yes-fly list: a list of people from the no-fly list who aren't terrorists.

Huh?

If the no-fly list is that flawed, why not just clear their names from the no-fly list? The no-fly list has already created travel hassles for innocent people including children and prominent members of Congress. Anyone named David Nelson gets harassed just trying to board a plane, all because one fellow named David Nelson is on the list.

Under this new bill, you have to prove to the Department of Homeland Suckyurity that you're not a terrorist just to be placed on the yes-fly list. Brings a whole new meaning to being considered guilty until proven innocent, doesn't it?

The entire no-fly list needs to just be ripped to tiny shreds, jabbed into the ground with a hedge trimmer, and reduced to compost with a lawn mower when it pops back out of the ground the next time it rains.

(Source: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/02/house-approves.html)

Aide loses job over pot charge from 26 years ago

Absolute corruption in the failed War on Drugs corrupts absolutely - and fosters a new McCarthyism.

The Michael Phelps flap is absurd enough, but when the new McCarthyism that Phelps has suffered hits average citizens over decades-old incidents, it becomes even more of an outrage.

New background check laws in Ohio have cost 2 employees of the Cincinnati school system their jobs. I understand the purpose of strengthened background checks - but I draw the line when the laws are used to go after someone who got caught with a gram of weed 30 years ago.

One of the fired employees is a longtime maintenance worker who has now been dismissed after 30 years over a felonious assault conviction from the '70s. The other is a 54-year-old teacher's aide who was fired after 22 years because it turned out that she purchased $5 worth of marijuana back in 1983.

Fired over a $5 pot charge from 26 years ago? And that charge wasn't even a felony!

What's next? Firing teachers over old parking tickets?

When I read about the firing, I knew right away there were grounds for a lawsuit, because the new law was being enforced ex post facto. Retroactive enforcement is barred by both the U.S. Constitution and the Ohio Constitution.

Sure enough, both the fired teacher's aide and the maintenance worker are suing for that very reason.

While folks lose jobs over decades-old marijuana buys, Dick Cheney roams the streets freely. Make one slip-up when you're 15, and your life is destroyed forever, but hardened criminals who hold powerful government positions go free.

(Source: http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090206/NEWS0107/302060016)

Same story, different Republican

I agree with a commenter on the Colorado paper's website: If Republicans these days had any self-respect, they wouldn't want to be associated with some of the creeps who find their way into the party.

But nope. They seem to have not a shred of self-respect or dignity nowadays. They've become arrogant and shameless.

Now the former office manager for the ill-fated McCain/Palin campaign in Pueblo, Colorado, has been arrested twice in the past week for allegedly molesting young boys. Fifty-two-year-old Jeffrey Bartleson is facing several counts related to these cases, which date back as far as the '80s. Bartleson allegedly met some of his victims at Republican rallies.

This is the GOP's idea of "family values", I guess. Molestation scandals like this have become widespread in the Republican Party in the past few years, and party leaders show no interest in cleaning house. But since GOP support has dwindled so spectacularly lately, they'd have precious few followers left if they did. It's kind of like my first high school being expected to weed out serial bullies.

(Source: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/feb/05/man-who-managed-mccains-pueblo-office-accused-mole)

Court backs book burners

Freedom of speech? Not in Miami, Florida!

In 2006, the professional book burners who run the Miami-Dade school board banned the book 'Vamos A Cuba' - not because of what the book said, because of what it didn't say. According to the censors, the volume didn't give enough space to opponents of Fidel Castro's government.

It turned out though that 'Vamos A Cuba' is part of a series of 24 books about various countries. The book about China doesn't make an issue of the Tibet occupation, nor does the book about the United States mention the genocide against Native Americans.

In other words, the censors' complaints thumped false. If they were so concerned about "accuracy" and "fairness", why didn't they assail the other tomes in the series too?

Book-burning Nazis who supported banning 'Vamos A Cuba' had their kids check out all copies of the book from the school library and not return them. In my day, that was called theft. But in 2006, anyone who dared to oppose this censorship was branded by the right-wing thought police as a "Castro lover."

But a federal court has now inexplicably sided with the First Amendment haters. The majority opinion was written by a right-wing judge appointed by Mad Dog Bush. (Elections have consequences, folks.)

The irony is that the censors claimed the book didn't devote enough attention to Cuba's lack of political freedom. Yet the censors, the school board, and the federal court showed a stunning lack of political freedom right here in the U.S. of A. They're guilty of the same offenses they attack Cuba for.

Censorship is one of the gravest enemies of hard-working people in any land.

(Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/education/story/890555.html)

I just thought of something really depressing...

Remember that powerful radio station on 94.5 in Lexington? You know, the one the guards at CPH hated because it wouldn't censor Bell Biv DeVoe's line about "gettin' paid, laid"?

Well, I'm pretty sure that sometime this year, this station will have been in more or less its current laughed-at format for just as long as it was in its previous format (17 years plus).

Damn, I'm old! But that's not what makes this so depressing.

Granted, I'm now more in the AC age group than CHR, but that shouldn't matter, since both formats have declined precipitously in quality since the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

The station you grew up with has grown old and gray.

Power company's profits soar

Duke Energy just got done poormouthing about how much money it lost in Cincinnati's September blackout that it wouldn't repair in time - and winning a rate hike from rubber-stamp so-called regulators.

Now - to the surprise of no one - it turns out that Duke ain't exactly hurting for money. Its fourth-quarter profits skyrocketed 36% compared to the same time the previous year. The utility giant made $331,000,000 in last year's fourth quarter.

That money could have restored power in how many neighborhoods how many days sooner?

(Source: http://www.wcpo.com/news/state/story/duke-energy-cold-demand-profit-up/9jNWxPn5_EKKw9IQf_qXqw.cspx)

Another Bush edict scrapped

Elections have results.

If America had gotten, say, a Fred Thompson in the White House, we'd be stuck with Bush's diktats for who knows how many more years. Thankfully, that threat never came true.

The Obama administration is now scrapping many of Bush's sales of oil and gas leases in Utah. These leases on public land threatened sensitive canyons and national monuments and parks, such as Arches National Park.

Bush actually thought it was a good idea to sell off environmentally sensitive public land near Arches National Park to be drilled for gas? The real story here is that any administration actually tried to.

(Source: http://www.wcpo.com/content/specials/2008/economy2008/story/Secretary-Salazar-Scraps-Sale-Of-Oil-And-Gas/HnJqIgFAAEOl4vGobUE7Ow.cspx)

Cut-and-run crew wants Google Earth banned

How do you appease terrorists? By citing terrorism as an excuse to ban Google Earth.

No terrorist wants freedom to ring. So when we sacrifice basic liberty, terrorists win.

Anyone who doesn't know this by now has got to have a severe shortage of brain power. Clearly, some people in high places know it, but just don't give a shit.

In a Mumbai courtroom, an attorney argued that Google Earth or any similar service should be banned, claiming Google Earth had aided terrorists in deadly attacks in that city.

Bull. And shit. The terrorists did what they did because they're terrorists. Not because Google Earth "let" them or "made" them.

I didn't know Jack Thompson had moved his law practice to Mumbai after Florida disbarred him.

What's next? Hey, let's ban computers! Let's ban maps! Let's ban breathing! We have to be on the safe side, you know. (That's sarcasm, in case you're wondering.)

(Source: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article5615916.ece)

Wells Fargo latest bank to party on our dime

A couple years back, Wells Fargo's fascism was so out of control that the banking giant kept calling me repeatedly, ostensibly in search of a man who I didn't even know and who owed money on a car loan. I had never used Wells Fargo for anything, let alone a car loan. In fact, I don't even own a car!

I complained to the Kentucky Attorney General's office about the calls, but even after that office sent a letter to Wells Fargo warning it about its phone harassment, the calls continued.

At its peak, I received about 30 calls a day from Wells Fargo. Most of these were hang-up calls - so you know they were more interested in harassment than anything, once they knew they weren't going to be able to extort money from me.

But in BushAmerica, no bad deed went unrewarded.

Wells Fargo didn't extract money from me in the way it originally wanted - but it did manage to steal from me and millions of other taxpayers in the form of its share of bailout money.

After getting $25,000,000,000 in bailout dough, Wells Fargo promptly booked a 12-day-long corporate party in Las Vegas. The bank made reservations for its top mortgage lenders at 2 of the city's most lavish hotels.

Wells Fargo had the nerve to defend this waste. But it canceled the event when people finally started turning up the pressure.

But now of course there's cancellation fees - which cost almost as much as if Wells Fargo had gone ahead with its plans. The moral of the story is: Wells Fargo never should have decided to throw a fancy party in the first place.

CliffsNotes version of the story: Wells Fargo made harassing phone calls, wasn't punished, got rewarded with taxpayer money (taken from its victim and others), tried squandering it on a lavish party, and wasted almost as much on cancellation fees.

(Source: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/feb/03/bailed-out-wells-fargo-plans-vegas-casino-junkets)

Kiss the Internet goodbye?

As governments award monopolies to telcom firms almost for the asking, such businesses should at least be expected to act in the public interest. In conservaland, however, public interest is a four-letter word.

Time Warner Cable has been "testing" a new payment structure in Beaumont, Texas. Under this new arrangement, Internet customers face rigid limits on their online use - and hefty charges if they go over the limit. And now they're expanding this "test" to other cities.

Clearly this was not devised as a method of allocating bandwidth fairly. By setting such a low limit, this was designed only to generate more revenues from average Internet users.

This is not the Internet of 15 years ago that used low-speed phone lines. This is the Internet of 2009, which has much greater capacity - so there's no justification for these limits. But with less and less competition, customers in Time Warner strongholds have few alternatives.

Japan and Europe have much faster Internet than even high-speed American ISP's. Yet they have no bandwidth limits - and they cost less.

If regulators don't rein in Time Warner, it's almost a given that other companies will copy its new payment plan. And then we can bid farewell to the Internet we once knew.

(Source: http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/2/time-warner-cable-bandwidth-caps)

School says it has "right" to beat student

Fyffe High School in northeastern Alabama thinks it can award itself "rights" it doesn't rightly have.

The public school in DeKalb County has ordered a student to be paddled for the capital offense of (get this) being in possession of her cell phone on the school bus after school.

In an era in which everyone is laughed at unless they have a cell phone, having your phone on the school bus is suddenly considered a major offense?

An equally important point is that the girl's parents never gave the school permission to use corporal punishment. Despite this, the school is claiming it has a "right" to paddle students whether the parents approve or not.

Strange. I don't see that in the Bill of Rights anywhere.

Even if the parents gave permission, paddling isn't exactly effective disciplinary policy. (My middle school was proof of that.) Then again, schools grant themselves a lot of "rights" they don't have.

At minimum, there should be a lawsuit against the school. If I was the parent, however, the school would be damn lucky to get off with just a lawsuit.

(Source: http://www.waaytv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9795082)

Right-wingers cry "commieism!" and "fascism!" over pay cap

Gotta hand it to my state for "electing" what may be the 2 worst senators north of 36° 30'.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) cried that the Obama administration's pay cap for execs of bailed-out banks is too much government interference with business. "I really don't want the government to take over these businesses and start telling them everything about what they can do," the hapless elbow care martinet said. "Then you truly have nationalized the business."

Eek! Government interference! Commieism!

If setting a pay cap for these banks is interfering with business, then what do they think the bailout is? If the government gives a bank money, why shouldn't it at least have some power to tell the bank what it needs to do?

It gets loopier. Some conservative blogger called the pay caps "fascism at our doorsteps."

Meanwhile, some right-wing fuckchop has been spamming blogs by posting a comment reading:

"While it should go without saying that even a legitimate President's 'ordered' $500,000 pay cap is an unenforceable intrusion into the private sector, as if that weren't enough, Obama LACKS EVEN OSTENSIBLE AUTHORITY to issue the order UNTIL HE OVERCOMES 'RES IPSA LOQUITUR' BY SUPPLYING HIS LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE AND PROVING HIS ELIGIBILITY TO BE PRESIDENT UNDER ARTICLE 2 OF THE US CONSTITUTION."

In other words, apologists for a bailout with no strings attached have nothing to fall back on except the birth certificate rumor that was debunked before anyone even thought Obama had a chance at getting elected.

A reader of this blog responded to the sorryass who posted that more effectively than I ever could:

"Blah blah blah Ted you sore loser.

"Hey STUPID!!!! If a pay cap is an 'unenforceable intrusion into the private sector'...THEN WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK THE BAILOUT IS?

"Fucking hypocrite."

Conservatives think it's just fine and dandy that banks want money money money from the government - but no regulation.

Imagine what conservatives' reaction would be if some poor, unemployed mother somewhere collected welfare but demanded the repeal of rules that require her to look for a job. You'd never hear the end of it. Yet banks get corporate welfare and don't expect to have to follow any rules.

As for ol' Mitch McConnell, he gets loopier too. That's his job, I guess. Now Mitch the Glitch also wants to remove "buy American" clauses from the stimulus bill.

y do u hate america mitch lololololol

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jNUPcf0GEP_zr3R6QPCU6F3cjgWQ)

'G'! Glue! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

"Nu nu nu nu nu nu nu..."

It's...the animated typewriter!

Fans of '70s 'Sesame Street' surely remember the animated segments featuring the red typewriter with arms that sings and types out the letter of the day.

Some say that Speak & Spell was influenced by this typewriter, for it too was red with yellow keys.

In this comical sketch, the typewriter gets mired in a puddle of glue!



The existence of this sketch heightens the long-held theory that the celebrated "'G'! Gum!" mantra at my high school was indeed inspired by 'Sesame Street'. As many things at my high school probably were.

Except maybe the time someone pissed all over library books and threw them out the window over by the art room. That probably wasn't inspired by 'Sesame Street'. But who knows?

Detained children may be compensated after scandal

A corruption scandal in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, gives a whole new meaning to "follow the money." To some of us, however, it's hardly surprising.

Two judges in that county have been charged with taking kickbacks after sending juvenile defendants to privately owned facilities. Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan are accused of taking of millions of dollars for sending children to the centers that are owned by a Pittsburgh businessman.

At one of the facilities, a teenager who was a first-time offender was beaten by other teens.

Now the state may compensate the young people who were locked up.

I will bet you my entire life savings that this is not the only instance in recent years in which American judges have taken kickbacks from confinement facilities. This happens to be one very few times they actually got caught.

Why else would so many courts these days send kids to abusive privately owned lockups and phony "rehabs"?

(Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09035/946743-454.stm)

Another foreclosure vandalism story debunked

The media never learns, does it?

Last year, the media hyped a story about foreclosure victims allegedly "stealing" furniture and letting pets smear crap on the walls of their foreclosed houses. This panic was quickly debunked: There were no more than a handful of isolated instances of foreclosure vandalism.

Now the media - well, really just Fox News - is spreading almost the exact same story. And it's about to be discredited even more readily.

The gist of this story is that residents who lost their homes to foreclosures are "stealing" appliances and furniture.

Um, no. The homeowners purchased these items separately from the house. If you put money into improving your house with new appliances, these improvements are yours to keep - foreclosure or not. It's impossible to "steal" something that's already yours.

Apparently, however, greedy banks think everything is theirs. If they touch something, it's theirs. If they look at something, it's theirs. If they think about something, it's theirs. Just like the villain in 'Elmo In Grouchland'. And why wouldn't they think it, after they got a bailout worth hundreds of billions, courtesy of the taxpayers?

The media's yellow journalism never ceases to astound. Banks are fleecing hard-working Americans, the economy has been collapsing for years, and Fux is making a story of a few stoves getting taken from foreclosed homes?

To the banks, I say this: Suck. It. Up.

Bar customers may be tracked in Utah

I love conservatives' support for smaller government, don't you?

Conservatives are of great assistance in getting Big Government off our backs and out of our - hey, wait a minute!!! What's this???

Conservative lawmakers in Utah now want bar customers to be tracked in a database. Utah Senate President Michael Waddoups (R) wants a statewide database to track every person who enters a bar.

Utah is already said to be the only state in this fine land that requires customers to fill out an application and pay a fee just to enter a bar (though North Carolina seems to have a similar law).

The governor, however, won't support a database, because he's worried about the image that Utah's peculiar alcohol laws already create. After all, Utah is probably still the largest theocracy in North America.

As for the politicians who do support the database, maybe it's time they mind their own business and stop poking their noses into everyone's lives. Conservatives are the first to complain if a government official wants to regulate a powerful corporation, but they're all for regulating personal behavior.

When it comes to Allowed Clouds, their side has everyone else beaten hands-down.

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gZtn1jsA5jQVU4RUnFTa48gFA0rAD964NEGG1)

SCHIP bill to become law!

Bush's 2007 temper tantrum against SCHIP - in which he vetoed a much-needed expansion of the children's health insurance program - will be remembered as one of the lowlights of that era.

It reached its low point when right-wing agitator Michelle Malkin tried to harass a 12-year-old boy at his father's workplace because the boy delivered the Democratic radio address supporting SCHIP.

Now President Obama is scheduled to sign into law today a long-awaited SCHIP expansion.

What a difference a President makes, huh?

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/4/101237/4666/701/692911)

Obama caps bank execs' pay

If only he had better Cabinet picks!

Following the Senate effort to limit the pay of executives of banks that received federal bailout money, President Obama seems to have taken note of this effort. The Obama administration has now imposed a pay limit of $500,000 per year on senior execs of most financial institutions that may get bailout funds in the future.

What? Only $500,000? Gee, nobody's going to take a job at that salary! (That's sarcasm, people.)

And after the way the banks that have already gotten bailout money have squandered it, why should the banks get any more bailouts in the future?

I think capping execs' pay at $500,000 is mighty generous, since it is more than what Obama makes as President. But the "regulation for thee, not for me" cult is already crying foul. They meep that a pay cap is too much intervention in the economy.

Then what in the Wide, Wide World Of Sports do they think the bailout is?

If you get government funds, you don't have any business expecting there to be no strings attached.

(Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BAILOUT_EXECUTIVE_PAY?SITE=SCGRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)

Block of AT&T job cuts urged

Smug capitalism means corporations can do what they want with no discipline whatsoever.

Under this cult, corporations have no obligations to their workers, the public, or anyone else. Their only aim is to Make Money for themselves.

Now that right-wing telcom giant AT&T wants to slash hundreds of employees from its Connecticut workforce, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal wants state regulators to block these job cuts.

As well they should. Block 'em, and block 'em again. Although AT&T is a corporation, the state gave it a monopoly ostensibly with the expectation that it would operate in the public interest. Not only would job cuts put hundreds out of work - it would also weaken customer service.

But America's Toilets & Testes has straaaaange ideas about law! AT&T says that blocking the job cuts violates the Constitution's commerce clause.

Uh, since when do corporations have constitutional rights? The commerce clause was never intended to prevent states from blocking job cuts - nor does the wording of the clause suggest it. The commerce clause was designed to protect private citizens, not corporations.

Corporations have no constitutional rights. None.

Even if AT&T is saying that it's protected as interstate commerce, what Blumenthal wants to do only applies to intrastate commerce. So that's 2 strikes against the ToileTestes legal eagles.

Evidently, however, Connecticut is yet another rubber-stamp state with regard to utility regulation. Regulators there have denied Blumenthal's efforts - even after Blumenthal pointed out that AT&T already has a dismal record. All this after AT&T again posted record profits.

Government bans against the laying off of workers have a precedent. Back when airlines were still regulated (man, those were the days), airlines couldn't lay off workers without government approval.

Only an activist court would say AT&T is protected under the commerce clause.

(By the way, this is the same AT&T that illegally signed me up and billed me for services I didn't order.)

(Source: http://www.courant.com/business/custom/consumer/hc-att0123.artjan25,0,7216245,print.story)

"Experts" think "overweight" kids should be taken from parents

When someone calls themselves an "expert" despite not showing any credentials to this effect, beware.

Now these self-anointed "experts" are demanding that "overweight" kids should be taken away from their parents. In a few locales, they already have been.

There's no logic behind this stance. Just the desire to make a "point" about the "obesity pandemic." I know this, because I'm sure nobody seriously thinks that an "overweight" kid is an automatic sign of abuse.

Children are being beaten daily, but they rarely get taken from their parents. In fact, right-wing activist courts have told parents they have a constitutional "right" to beat kids. (Courts in Minnesota and Hawaii have actually created this so-called "right" out of whole cloth where no such "right" previously existed.)

But if a kid seems to weigh a little more than average - even if the parents had no control over this - their parents will never get to see them again.

Why not try to educate families about children's health instead of punishing them for something they may have had no control over?

Next thing you know, states are going to start taking children away from their parents because they refuse to drug them with Ritalin. Wait, that's already been happening for 10 years.

This story is more proof that "experts" really don't know shit about anything.

(Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/call-for-obese-kids-to-be-taken-into-care/2009/02/01/1233423045494.html)

Reid pushed Gregg nomination

President Obama's bipartisanship is really swell, isn't it? I think it's great that he's going to appoint members of the Green Party to his administration, don't you?

Wait, he isn't. Under the DLC/GOP oligopoly, reaching across party lines means shutting out the Greens. It also means that even though Republicans don't appoint Democrats, Democrats have to appoint Republicans.

With Obama nominating the bitterly conservative Sen. Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, as the next Commerce Secretary, folks are scratching their heads. Wasn't reappointing Robert Gates enough to pacify the Republicans?

Of course not, because nothing ever is. So what's the point in trying?

Judd Gregg's nomination proves the DLC still looms fart-like in the Democratic Party. Who encouraged the selection of Gregg? Good ol' Harry Reid.

That's right. The ineffective Senate Majority Leader and DLCer was the first person to propose Gregg to Obama.

I bet this proposal was made in a "stern letter" too, right, Harry?

If Reid expected the Democrats to gain a 60th Senate seat once Gregg vacated his seat, he has to be the most naive politician in America. Although New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch is a Democrat, he (like Reid) is an avid DLCer who always seems more than eager to appease Republicans just for its own sake.

True to form, Lynch has already agreed to appoint a Republican to Gregg's old seat.

The net result? The Republicans - despite being resoundingly rejected by the voters - stay in charge of important government positions.

If I was a new senator from my state, I'd likely be one who votes against confirming Judd Gregg as Commerce Secretary.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/2/3/9132/72686/218/692369)

The man who's wrong about everything moves to Washington Post

Weekly Standard founder William Kristol is laughed at by millions for being wrong almost every time he opens his trap.

Last year, Kristol wanted Bush to give the Medal of Freedom to officials who administered torture and conducted illegal warrantless wiretaps. This added to Kristol's record of being one of the right wing's most preposterous commentators.

For the past year, Kristol has written a column for the New York Times. But now this gig has unceremoniously ended with just the words, "This is William Kristol's last column."

But dumb losers like Kristol usually aren't quiet for very long. (Hell, Newt Gingrich resigned his House seat in disgrace 10 years ago, but the media still asks his opinion about every news event.)

Now Kristol has been hired by the Washington Post to pen a monthly column and contribute to the newspaper's blog.

The Washington Post used to be highly respected, but it's gone so far to the right in recent years that one wonders if its printing press didn't get mixed up with Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times, its right-wing competitor. In 2006, the Post launched a conservative blog - but no parallel liberal blog. (The conservative blog was quickly scrapped because its editor committed plagiarism. However, the wingnutosphere still holds him in high regard and continues to link to his articles.)

Hiring a laughingstock like William Kristol isn't a good way for a paper to earn respect.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/business/media/27kristol.html)

More DeMint/Heritage hypocrisy

When you get a right-wing gasbag like Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) together with an America-hating right-wing think tank like the Heritage Foundation, hilarity and hypocrisy are both likely outcomes.

Congressional Republicans are weird. They're actually proud of their unanimous opposition to President Obama's economic stimulus efforts. (All 177 House Republicans voted against the stimulus bill.) Republicans claim their stance is motivated by a desire for smaller government.

Smaller government? This is the same party that gave us the Patriot Act, the War on Drugs, work-for-less laws, the failed bailout, and the federal law that requires libraries to censor web terminals - and they're claiming they're for small government?

DeMint appeared at a Hitlerage Foundation event and boasted, "How about those House Republicans?" The Washington Post described DeMint as a "vocal small-government advocate" - but what DeMint says doesn't always jibe with what he does.

Jim DeMint is the extremist scoundrel who wanted to punish the city of Berkeley, California, because of the city's antiwar politics. If DeMint is small government, then I'm Steve Forbes.

The Heritage Foundation isn't exactly the small government champion it claims to be either. In its amazing top 40 countdown of the world's freest nations, Singapore usually ranks around #2 - ahead of the United States.

Singapore is an island city-state that has had one of the most oppressive regimes on the globe. This is the government that outlawed bubble gum, imposed flogging for even minor violations of the law, banished due process from its judicial system, and kicked human rights organizations like Amnesty International out of the country.

That's the Heritage Foundation's idea of "freedom." You can't make this shit up, people.

No wonder Jim DeMint likes that little club. They're as uproariously hypocritical as he is.

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/29/AR2009012904329.html)

Bank of America wastes bailout funds on Super Bowl bash

The bailout outrage grows daily, so why should Groundhog Day be any exception? Even our friends at ABC of all places seem to think it's out of control now.

It turns out that Bank of America - which received bailout money from the taxpayers - spent these bailout funds on an extravagant, 5-day-long Super Bowl party that was covered from end to end with the bank's marketing materials.

(Of course, I've boycotted the NFL for several years because of its frisking of fans. And the Super Bowl always seems to be won by the same teams year after year anyway, because the NFL favors these teams. But that's another story entirely.)

Wank of America thought it was so on the brink of collapse that it needed $45,000,000,000 in taxpayer money, but it has enough money to sponsor a 5-day event like this?

Most people I know are worried if they're still going to have a job or even an apartment a month from now (if they're not already suffering chronic unemployment), but Bank of America spent taxpayer money on a Super Bowl party?

The bank's defense is that this was a "business proposition" that was part of its "growth strategy." But Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) said of Wank of America, "They should know better, but obviously they don't."

Meanwhile, bailout recipient Morgan Stanley - a bank that laid off 5,000 workers - used a 5-star oceanfront resort to hold an elegant gathering for clients.

(Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3719021&mesg_id=3719021)

World of hurt

I'm in such a world of hurt that if I still worked at the library, I wouldn't even be able to show up today (even though I rarely missed work there).

I can't sleep now, and I don't know if I'm going to be able to maintain my usual schedule for this blog the next few days, because of events that occurred yesterday.

If there's one thing I will not stand for, it's being the victim of personal (and vaguely classist) attacks for events I had absolutely nothing to do with. You think you know people well enough that they won't talk smack about you in public, but sometimes you don't.

You don't make friends with people by talking trash about them, and if this smartass had made these statements to my face, I would have knocked his fucking block off. I can appreciate satire or constructive criticism, but what was said yesterday was nothing short of a personal attack.

If you want to look at the glass as half-full instead of half-empty, this is the point at which we get down on our knees and thank our lucky stars that this situation wasn't stoked further like it would have been in years past. The chorus of an old Joan Jett & the Blackhearts hit comes immediately to mind.

I'm not going to take advantage of this cruel game that was kept up at my expense, because I don't want reminders of it around. At least I'm being the better sport here.

I don't know whether only one individual is in on this game, but of all the things I've experienced, this was about the most underhanded and one of the sickest. When I came to this realization, I felt a jab in my heart, and I was shaking for hours.

I think sleep this morning is pretty much out of the question. But I've survived crises worse than this that were fanned for years. I don't expect to be taken down by this for very long.

FEMA praised for Kentucky response

During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Bush partied and was photographed playing a guitar with a big shit-eating smirk on his face. And Bush's FEMA officials were hundreds of miles away from the hurricane aftermath, shopping for new suits for their own photo ops.

But Bush leaves office, and all that changes.

While Kentucky and nearby states dig out of a blizzard and the obligatory prolonged power outage, FEMA has acted swiftly. For days, FEMA trucks have been transporting food, water, toilets, generators, and gasoline into Kentucky.

Right-wing websites have placed their own spin on the story by trying to paint Obama's FEMA in a poor light, but it's to no avail. I've yet to see them cite any actual examples of FEMA incompetence following this storm.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) has pressed the National Guard into action to assist in recovery efforts. So even at the state level, our leaders are on the ball this time.

I'm not saying this for political reasons. (I am a registered Green, after all.) I say it because it's a fact. The wingnutosphere, however, is trying to politicize this story - but they're coming up empty.

I've fretted for years about how off the mark our government agencies often are. But now FEMA is on the right track - finally.

(Source: http://wowktv.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=51093)

Cops sued over botched drug raid

Another day, another innocent family terrorized in a botched raid by the drug warriors.

This time, the victims are fighting back!

A month ago, a Detroit woman and her children ages 9 to 18 were at home when they were raided by police. About 14 officers barged into the family's home with no search warrant and demanded to know where drugs and guns were.

But the woman had no guns or drugs. When she told the cops this, they brutally twisted her arm - in full view of her kids. The ordeal lasted 2 hours, while police manhandled the children and used racial slurs.

The next day, cops approached the woman with Wal-Mart and Target gift certificates, $100 in cash, and a promise to buy her a cashmere coat.

In other words, the police tried paying her off so she wouldn't sue them.

Guess what? This attempted payoff didn't work. Now the woman is suing the Detroit Police Department for $15,000,000 over the attack.

The police should have to pay dearly. The War on Drugs is out of control, and more and more innocent Americans are finding their homes raided for nothing.

(Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20090130/NEWS01/901300325/Detroit+woman+sues+police+for+$15+million)

Bailed-out banks sought foreign workers

Even our Associated Press friends think something is amiss about the growing bailout scandal.

The AP now reports that banks that have accumulated gabillions of dollars in bailout dough have been trying to fill jobs with foreign workers - not American workers.

These banks have sought permission to bring thousands of foreign employees to American soil to work.

Can someone please tell me how again this is supposed to help the American economy? I'm not against immigration per se, but wasn't one of the reasons for the bailout supposed to be to keep Americans working?

For years, companies have been abusing foreign workers by holding their passports. It's unclear however if that's going on this time. It's also unknown how many foreign nationals the banks that got bailout money from American taxpayers actually hired.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090201/ap_on_bi_ge/bailout_foreign_workers_2)

Should bailout beneficiaries have a pay cap? ('Pail Poll)

Well, our last 'Pail Poll was pretty lopsided. It asked you if Bush was the worst President since each of an assortment of historical events. In all, 5 of you said he was the worst President ever. But 10 of you said Bush wasn't even President, because he stole the election. None of the other options garnered a single vote.

With Bush now gone and in disgrace, it's time for a new 'Pail Poll! This one asks you whether there should be a law to limit the pay of top executives at banks and other companies that received federal bailout money.

There's now a bill that would cap execs' pay, after some CEO's used bailout money to give themselves huge bonuses. After autoworkers were forced to take a pay cut, why are bank execs able to get a pay raise?

Should bank execs' pay be limited after getting bailout money? Or should there just be "stern letters"?

Wingnuts never were too bright (a blast from the past)

Americans have many reasons to be peeved at the modern (post-1980) brand of right-wing ideologues: their economic elitism, their frequent racism (which they go to great lengths to deny), their turning their backs on America's brave war vets, and so on.

But I've just found a term paper I did for college English class in 1993 that provides a reason why we should actually be having fun at the wingnuts' expense: their unchecked stupidity, which was going full throttle even then.

I'm discarding this assignment because I'm trying to reduce clutter. But not before I regale you with some of my more interesting findings. (If I start keeping printed copies of my entries here, that may defeat the purpose of throwing away my term paper though.)

My 1993 report reads (with footnotes removed):

"Books are not safe from the Moral Majority either. For example, fundamentalists condemned 'Three Little Pigs' in the eighties for encouraging witchcraft. The reason for the criticism is the depiction of pigs dancing joyously while burning a wolf to death.

"At least 900 different books have been banished from school libraries by the Moral Majority. Among them are such classics as 'The Catcher In The Rye' and 'The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn'. 'Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary' was banned because the religious right objected to some of the words listed therein. Many books have been banned without being read first. For instance, the Moral Majority banned 'Making it With Mademoiselle' without realizing it was actually a dressmaking guide.

"The women's health book 'Our Bodies, Ourselves' was banned from school libraries in Montana when the Moral Majority said it condoned 'sexual conduct.' State official Marc Racicot (who is now governor) tried to press criminal charges against anybody distributing the book to a person under 16. He also said that we have 'genuflected at the altar of free speech far too long.'"

My term paper also pointed out how conservative extremists tried to have chapters about the Holocaust removed from textbooks. These extremists claimed the Holocaust was a hoax.

For this area in 1993, my term paper was actually pretty progressive. Although the report didn't devote much space to the New Right's economic tyranny, it's important to note that these book censorship efforts had a lot of wealthy supporters bankrolling them.