GOP thug jailed for starting fight

See this creepy Charles Manson look-alike? It's Will Statom, registration deputy of the Republican Party in Muncie, Indiana.

In a major local scandal, county election officials refused to process hundreds of voter registration forms that were gathered in a nonpartisan voter drive. Local Democrats and others were rightly peeved at election officials' corruption, as it meant the volunteers' efforts were wasted. They went down to the county building to get answers.

When nothing but excuses were offered, they decided to leave. Only then did it get violent.

Statom, a member of the county's voter registration board, angrily confronted the group and the media. First, he made a crude remark at Muncie Star Press reporter Nick Werner, who was there covering the story. Then, Statom shoved Werner, put him in a headlock, and pounded him on his head.

But Will Statom wasn't done yet! He then landed a punch on Democratic congressional candidate Barry Welsh's kisser when Welsh tried to break up the attack.

Police arrived and arrested Statom. The violent kook was charged with battery for his attacks on Welsh and Werner.

This right-wing thug is on the county election board???

(Source: http://www.thestarpress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080409/NEWS01/804090346;
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/9/205124/1050/228/487934)

Ohio county loses votes

I'm starting to get the feeling that the Republican fix is already in, and the country is screwed for another 4 years. (Which it probably is anyway, thanks to the DLC's Republicanesque allergy to the Constitution, but that's a whole other matter.)

In Butler County, Ohio, officials have discovered a computer error that lost at least 105 votes in the recent primary election.

One hundred five votes might not have been enough to sway that election - but nobody knows if this error was repeated in other counties or in earlier elections. Half the counties in Ohio - including some big ones - use this same software to count votes.

The missing Butler County votes were found, but only after a close inspection. The normal methods of checking votes never would have caught the mistake.

How are we expected to trust the election results when errors like this happen? Are we supposed to just be good little woocaps and pretend as if this isn't going on? It's gone on for years, but lately it's gotten worse.

(Source: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080409/NEWS01/804090352/1077/COL02)

Beating of anti-immigration student found to be hoax

To me, immigration is pretty much a cold-button issue: The new border fence is a waste of money, but I think a higher minimum wage and a repeal of work-for-less laws would do more for American workers than any new policies on newcomers. But when someone starts raving against immigration, I get a little suspicious, because sometimes there's foul ideas that seem to go along with this stance. They often view it as more of a culture war issue than an economic one, and that needlessly fans the flames.

So when a 13-year-old girl in Athens, Texas, claimed she was beaten up by schoolmates over her school project in which she protested immigration, I knew the alleged beating was a hoax. I just knew it. (For this assignment, she had made a poster that implored, "If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration.")

I knew it was a hoax, because stuff like this always turns out to be a hoax. Kind of like the time a conservative student at Princeton University beat himself up and claimed it was an attack by those "big, mean liberals." Or the time a GOP activist in West Virginia claimed the painters' union tore a Bush sign out of his daughter's hands, which also turned out to be a staged attack.

When the 13-year-old in Texas claimed she was beaten, the story made national headlines, and the media was too lazy to question her claim. But now the whole story has turned out to be a fraud. A videotape surfaced showing her scratching her own arm - which she blamed on the assailants. Now the school system is filing charges against her for creating this poorly executed hoax. However, the fact that the beating never happened isn't being reported outside of eastern Texas.

To be honest, I think somebody put her up to the whole thing. There's a whole yellow journalism machine that encourages people to stage frauds like this for political gain.

(Source: http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8142322&nav=1TjD;
http://rising-hegemon.blogspot.com/2004/09/bogus-assault-father-freeper-of-year.html)

Gun thief spared prison because he's an athlete

What do you think would happen to you if you were 18 or 19 and got caught breaking into a house and stealing guns? Or even if you weren't 18 yet?

These days, if you're not a star athlete, you'd be pretty much finished. You'd do a few years in the state pen at least. But if you are a star athlete, laws go plumb out the window.

In Covington, Kentucky, a young man admitted that he and his cousin broke into a house and stole numerous rifles and shotguns. The home belonged to a former coach at Holmes High School, where the gun thief was a star football player. For this crime, the young man was facing 5 to 10 years in prison.

But it turned out that he had a full football scholarship at the University of Kentucky. So his high school intervened and asked the court to give him a hand slap. Naturally, the court let him off easy because he's an athlete. He got only 2 months in jail, plus some restitution, community service, and probation.

He would have been 18 or 19 when he stole the guns, so he was legally an adult. But he got a lighter punishment than a juvenile who is not an athlete would have received for the same crime. When his probation is over, most gun thieves would be only halfway through their prison term. Five to 10 years is stiffer than what I think is necessary, but is it fair to have this twin-tiered "justice" system that mollycoddles athletes and locks everyone else up to rot? Most 19-year-old men don't get a second chance after burglarizing a house to steal guns.

In fact, most people don't even get a second chance after anything. Some folks in Texas are facing up to 3 years just for buying over-the-counter allergy medicine, even though I haven't seen any proof they intended to use it for illicit purposes.

What's just as astonishing in the case of the gun thief is his school intervening on his behalf. Is this what my alma mater has stooped to? I guess this is just another aspect of the decline of what used to be one of the few decent schools I ever attended.

What message does this send? All it does is let athletes know they won't get punished too severely if they break the law. If someone commits a crime, they'll know their school has their back - as long as they were a star athlete.

Maybe the fact that he got a light sentence is partly society's fault for tolerating this double standard for years because school sports has attained such cult-like status.

(I also think athletic scholarships should be abolished, especially with tuition for everyone else skyrocketing, but that's another matter.)

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=d28e98e8-b324-46a7-8abd-1539994e9968)

Right-wing bias found in textbooks

Gee, ya think?

For years, Texas education bureaucrats allowed the late Mel and Norma Gabler to "review" school textbooks to make sure the books were friendly to conservative causes. This had a national impact: Publishers didn't want to lose business from the second-largest state by putting out books the Gablers disapproved of, and many other states based their own lists of approved books on that of Texas.

This legacy of right-wing censorship doesn't seem to have subsided. While many accept the schools' indoctrination, some students are bold enough to take issue with it. And it took a high school senior in Kearny, New Jersey, to uncover right-wing bias in one of the most widely used textbooks on American civics. Scholars and scientists say the student is right.

The book is 'American Government' by James Q. Wilson and John DiIulio, and it's used in the student's advanced placement government class and in high school and college classes across the country. The authors' conservative links are insurmountable: DiIulio used to be Bush's director of faith-based initiatives, and in the '90s he played up the right-wing "superpredator" wet dream that helped fuel the prison boom. Wilson heads the Council of Academic Advisors for the right-wing American Enterprise Institute.

Of particular concern are the book's biased treatment of the school prayer issue and climate change. Some of the volume's statements aren't just biased but factually wrong, especially about the Supreme Court's school prayer rulings.

The Kearny school system has a history of intolerance. In 2006, teacher David Paszkiewicz got a Conservative Fool Of The Day entry because he was caught telling students they "belong in hell" if they practice the "wrong" religion and that there were dinosaurs on Noah's ark.

Silly me. I used to think most of this shit would stop once we got past 1992.

(Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jbrQTGcd9yRqQEuE_5cArsv8kvcwD8VTVOE80;
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1207716858218700.xml&coll=1)

6 face prison for buying allergy medicine

Because America is now Nazi, there's going to be more outrageous stories like this, so hold on to your hats.

In February (this story didn't get coverage outside central Texas until now) 6 people in the Waco, Texas, area were arrested because they (if you're easily offended, stop reading now) purchased over-the-counter cold and allergy medicine. They were accused of violating a portion of the Patriot Act that limits how much of this product they can purchase.

That clause is unconstitutional, as its requirement that buyers sign a log is a warrantless search. But it's enforced zealously, and an unfortunate bloke in upstate New York became what was reportedly the first person arrested and convicted under the new law. While the alleged purpose of the law is to stop people from making meth, prosecutors admitted this man had no intent to make meth and that the drug he purchased was for his personal use. (There may have been someone else charged before him in a separate case, which means the Justice Department lied when they claimed he was the first.)

The DEA claims this law is very effective in fighting meth. They lie. The DEA lies about everything. Deaths from meth in Texas increased 24% when that state passed its own version of this law before the federal version took effect. After the federal statute passed, the amount of meth has only increased, and it's now controlled by international gangs.

All 6 of the people arrested in the Texas case face prison. A few of the defendants had prior drug convictions, so they may face 2 or 3 years - and it's a felony because of their priors. But I have yet to see anything in the story that shows that any of the 6 intended to make meth.

So - depending on how this case has played out - the 6 defendants may end up becoming 6 more Drug War statistics. All so the DEA, the Bush regime, and the so-called "opposition" can wave their dicks around.

(Source: http://www.kwtx.com/news/misc/15781312.html)

Restraint to be used on inmates who flush towels down toilet

I believe it was Gatewood Galbraith who said that full employment in today's totalitarian environment means that 50% of the people are jail guards and the other 50% are in jail. And this is another story of how there's a whole system in place to punish everyone.

At the jail in White County, Tennessee, they've come up with a new device to punish inmates who "misbehave and cause problems" (in the words of the sheriff). They call it a restraint chair, and it looks like a large, gray airplane seat with straps sprouting in every direction. Really it's a torture device.

What sort of offenses will earn detainees an appointment with the restraint chair? The sheriff says inmates have broken windows and flushed towels down the toilets, and he's mighty tired of it. So I'm assuming the chair will be used on prisoners who merely damage property.

What century is this again? What's next? Waterboarding?

A device like this has potential to do real damage, and it doesn't exactly sound like the proper tool to combat vandalism. I guess it's kind of a situation where if all you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. The damage to the inmates may be less physical than psychological: Wouldn't you be bitter if this device was used on you for something as minor as plopping a towel?

If there isn't a lawsuit over this, I'll just bip.

(Source: http://www.spartaexpositor.com/articles/2008/04/03/news/doc47f0af19a708a969643848.txt)

Another air travel folly: puppy crushed to death

This story makes me so damn mad I can't even see straight. It just goes to show what life is like in a country where Big Business has almost no regulation at all - and actually gets taxpayer subsidies.

The beautiful puppy pictured here is gone now. She's dead. She didn't even live long enough to receive a name.

A New Hampshire couple was having a small puppy shipped to them from Arkansas. But when they were on their way to the Boston airport to pick up the 3-month-old dog, they got a call informing them that the puppy was killed while changing flights in Atlanta.

Someone at Delta Airlines had placed the puppy on the ground next to a baggage truck that was loading a plane. When the vehicle moved, the dog was crushed. The couple hasn't heard back from Delta since the incident, so it's obvious Delta is trying to shirk responsibility.

If Delta isn't responsible for this, who is? Clearly there were at least 2 workers involved in the incident (the one who put the cage on the ground and the one driving the vehicle), so this indicates they were just following the instructions the airline gave them. I blame the corporation more than I blame the employees, because the corporation gives the orders.

I've got a good mind to tell some execs what I think. You're not supposed to create a situation where pets are put in danger like this. Ever. But airlines have done it before: I remember once in the mid-'90s when it was revealed that greedy airlines had fatally suffocated puppies on flights. The industry didn't learn its lesson then, and it still hasn't.

The airline industry gets our money whether we fly or not: Congress and Bush bailed out the airline industry in 2001 for its own stupid mistakes that were costing it business. Our tax dollars are funding airlines' actions that endanger animals.

With America now nearly the model of a corporate command state, when will it stop? Right-wing activist judges have robbed the states of their rights to regulate air travel (like when they absurdly said states could not require stranded flights to provide passengers with water and restrooms) and the federal government chooses not to regulate it, so who will exercise some oversight over how airlines spend our tax dollars?

(Source: http://wbztv.com/local/dog.crushed.killed.2.694465.html)

Work-for-less liars accused of fraud

Surprise, surprise, huh?

In Colorado, the forces are greed are trying to organize a ballot initiative to pass a so-called "right-to-work" law. I call it a work-for-less law, because it guts union protections and causes workers to be paid less for their efforts. This effort is an act of political extortion, but this bullying (along with a generous dose of Election Day fraud) actually succeeded in passing an unconstitutional work-for-less law in Oklahoma a few years ago.

Now labor unions and groups representing the poor report that the Colorado drive is marred by fraud. They've filed a complaint with the Colorado Secretary of State claiming that the right-to-scab law's petition organizers told folks they didn't have to be registered voters to sign the petition (a big no-no) and that they could sign it more than once (another big no-no).

The work-for-less law's organizers may be fined up to $500 and jailed for up to 6 months for these violations. Or they may have their petitions tossed out and be forced to start over - which would be uproarious, because the "right-to-work" gang deserves to have their efforts dashed to pieces just for being so greedy.

I don't think there are any major movements in America today that are as driven by corporate greed as the "right-to-work" (bowel) movement is.

(Source: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_8818688)

Another boring science skeptic story

I hate to bore you again with another article about some mindless conservative denying science, but here it comes. (Ppphh! There it went!)

A businessman outside Salt Lake City is mad because his daughter's middle school science teacher showed 'An Inconvenient Truth' to the class. The hapless gent says the teacher should have provided a rebuttal to Al Gore's climate change film.

Alright, then when they teach that 2 plus 2 is 4 in math class, let's also provide a rebuttal for that. When they say the sky is blue and grass is green, let's provide a rebuttal for that as well.

The teacher was simply following state science standards. These guidelines direct instructors to introduce the topic of climate change to students, because it's closely related to concepts that are central to much of modern science.

But the complainant remains undeterred! He admits global warming is real but denies that human activity accounts for more than 1% of it. Every credible scientific study of the past few years, however, would beg to differ. Groups like the American Meteorological Society all say carbon emissions have caused climate change.

And so, the Bushist war on science continues. I bet the bloke who complained about Gore's movie also thinks sewage in drinking water is safe and that hitting a stop sign with rocks can make a sonic boom.

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/middleblue3/story.aspx?content_id=3680f1df-db1a-498b-97ee-90c4ec784794)

4 more soldiers killed in attacks

Yet another sad story from Iraq.

More American futures were ended today in the 5-year-long war that still has no end in sight. Three U.S. soldiers were killed and another 31 were wounded by a series of rocket attacks, and hospital officials say at least 16 Iraqi civilians were killed and almost 100 were injured. Another American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb.

This brings the U.S. military death toll to 4,017.

The more you learn about the war, the worse the war is. All the while, Dick Cheney's cronies have cashed in.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080406/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq)

Democratic support ruled out

I was afraid this would happen, but that's why I've spent months doing my homework about the major candidates for Prez. As idiot Bush once said, "Fool me once, shame on, shame on you. You fooled me, you can't get fooled again." So I'm doing my best to make sure I don't back the wrong clown - which I have before in a big way. (For the record, I never supported Bush - in case you're new here.)

You can probably tell I preferred Obama as the Democratic nominee - and still do, compared to Hillary - but I'm a Green, and I've deliberately delayed issuing a real endorsement until I can find the facts I need.

My ideology is the prototype of a progressive populist, if you will. I feel government's role should be limited to being a tool of the people to run public services and oversee economic planning. The government should stay out of the bedroom, the bathroom, the bloodstream, and the bladder. My view has elements of socialism and libertarianism that are practiced stridently.

I was hoping I didn't have to spell this out again, but with the DLC stinking things up, I have to: I'm not supporting any candidate who insists on continuing the most failed elements of the War on Drugs. Clear? I know the corrupt party bosses don't care about my writings, because I don't have that college sheepskin (a fact that in their minds makes me less of a person), but they can bite my balls.

It's bad enough not to use your power as a lawmaker to stop one of the War on Drugs' most extreme affronts to the basic liberty of law-abiding citizens. It's worse still to have already voted for it. It's even worse to have cosponsored it. And it's worse yet to tout it to some voters in your presidential campaign (while never owning up to it to voters among whom it's not saleable). That's how a candidate can be at least 4 long steps removed from the Constitution.

There's some ideas that are well to the right of the mainstream but still seem to get support from almost every senator. Well, this is where it ends. The buck stops here.

So - depending on who Kentucky allows on the November ballot - I've narrowed my endorsement down to Nader or the Greens. It's not unexpected, but human rights are not negotiable. And I'll do my homework on these potential endorsees too just to make sure they haven't also sold out to the Far Right.

Clear Channel DJ makes racist comments

WDCG-FM (G-105) in Raleigh, North Carolina, used to be a respected station. But now it's owned by the right-wing Clear Channel syndicate, and the station has apparently become just as idiotic as you'd expect from that firm.

A few days ago, WDCG morning host Bob Dumas made racist comments about Native Americans over the air. He said Native Americans are "lazy" and "inbred."

The North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs wants the station to fire Bob Dumbass and the producers of his show because of the inflammatory remarks, and they've asked the FCC to investigate Crap Channel. WDCG offered a public apology, but the station only sounded sorry because it got caught.

I can appreciate shock radio, but Dumas's remark was over the line. And who the hell even thinks these remarks are funny or clever? They're not. They're just stupid and bigoted. Dumas didn't even put any thought into it. If radio personalities can get suspended for jokes about politicians that don't even go out over the air and don't even cause much controversy anyway, why shouldn't Bob Dumbass at least be suspended too?

Dumas has a history of incendiary statements. A few years ago, he was one of the clods who urged motorists to run down bicyclists with their cars. At the time, several other so-called personalities on Clear Channel stations in other cities said the exact same thing. In 2004, Dumas made racist comments about an 'American Idol' winner.

Clear Channel calls this a constructive use of the airwaves? The airwaves are public property, and that's why the FCC has exercised some oversight over who gets a broadcasting license and what goes out over the air. Even before this incident, I felt the FCC should effectively break up Clear Channel by awarding its licenses to independent owners.

(Source: http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=290517)

8-year-old suspended for sniffing marker

The right-wing "zero tolerance" Taliban doesn't seem to mind when someone gets shot or pushed down the steps at school - but sniff a marker, and you've earned the school's enmity for life.

In Westminster, Colorado, an 8-year-old elementary school student has been suspended from school because he (I'm warning you, dear reader, please don't read further if you're easily offended) sniffed his shirt after drawing on it with a Sharpie marker.

"It smelled good," the 3rd grader said. "They told me that's wrong."

The school's excuse was that sniffing the marker supposedly looked like he was huffing an inhalant. Which is bullshit, of course. I don't think I ever heard of inhalants until middle school, so it's obvious the 8-year-old wasn't huffing the ink. And if markers pose such a risk, why would they be readily available in elementary schools?

People sniffed markers all the time when I was in school, and nobody batted an eye at them. A toxicologist for the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center says it's impossible to get high from this type of nontoxic marker. Absolutely impossible. In other words, the school is full of shit (a not uncommon characteristic of schools).

The suspension was reduced from 3 days to one day after the boy's parents complained. (Wow, what liberalness on the part of the school!) But if I had a child who was suspended over something like this, the school would have to face me in court. These days, people aren't willing to stand up for their rights like they to used to be, and that's why schools think they can run roughshod over rights.

I think it's time for a legislative fix to the "zero tolerance" bane. Lawmakers need to stand up and say that schools can't pull this horseshit.

(Source: http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=89333)

The death of the rural Democrat?

I think that for the first time ever, a Democrat is going to be elected President while winning hardly a single rural county anywhere (except in Vermont, Hawaii, and a few smaller areas). It seems far-fetched, but there's some real formidable factors at work here.

I know there's a lot of rural areas where, as much as they've trended against the Democrats lately, folks absolutely cannot stand Republicans like Bush. But if the GOP puts a less sinister tone on its extremist agenda, it could pretty much seal the deal. I'd be a bit disappointed if the Republican losers win counties they haven't won since 1972, but I think it'll happen (only to be offset by Democratic gains in urban areas).

A lot of this is of the Democrats' own making. Under the DLC, they caved to the Republicans, and they ignored the recession of the late '90s (which resulted from Republican policies). Either one of the 2 remaining Democrats can perform well in truly rural areas - but won't, because of DLC baggage. Still, a lot of this loss is due to vote suppression and outright fraud by the GOP.

But one fact that's often ignored is that one of the reasons rural Democrats hardly seem to exist anymore is that rural America hardly exists anymore. How many rural counties are there left in the U.S. and A. that aren't an exurb of some larger city? Even the smallest county in Kentucky is now nearly an exurb of, what, Maysville?

And everyone knows exurbs are where the suburban GOP conservatives are going. Rural Democratic populists end up going...away. Or so the polls make it seem. A lot of this loss of rural Democrats is obviously a case of them losing transport to the polls, because where else could they possibly go? They can't just pack up and move when they depend so much on living in a rural area.

The trend today is that inner suburbs become urban and rural areas become suburban. It looks like the urban areas will completely carry the day for the Democrats this time. The exurbs will complain (like they do about everything), but it was the outer suburbs that carried it for the Republicans for decades, so what goes around comes around.

Air America charges to the right with Rhodes suspension

Air America Radio used to be considered a bright beacon of hope surrounded by a sea of rightist inanity. (We briefly had an affiliate here, but the station was owned by Clear Channel, which intentionally bungled it just so they could trot it out as "proof" that Air America wasn't viable here.) But now the radio network appears to be in the process of being overcome by DLC beedledickery.

A few weeks ago, legendary Air America talk show host Randi Rhodes delivered what was intended to be a comedic performance at an event sponsored by the network's San Francisco affiliate. (The San Francisco affiliate is also owned by Clear Channel, so I wonder if they'll try to set it up for trouble there too like they did in Cincinnati.) Rhodes made a joke about Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro, regarding the pointless attacks leveled by Ferraro and Clinton against Barack Obama. Rhodes's words were well-received by the audience, which cheered thunderously. She later received mail from her show's sponsors and others praising her for her performance.

A couple weeks later, Air America big shots finally reacted. (At this rate, the next thing you know they'll take a stand on the Stamp Act of 1765.) Although Rhodes's statement was not delivered over the air and did not generate controversy, Air America suspended Rhodes from her radio show indefinitely.

Randi Rhodes feels that this suspension is a breach of contract by Err America. The network also refuses to disclose how long the suspension will be or if it is permanent, because it wants to "gauge public reaction." Now that's gumption - not! I think Air America is using Rhodes's remarks just as an excuse to get her off the air because she supports Obama. Air America's current CEO is a big Clinton backer, and I wouldn't exactly call Clinton a progressive choice.

Sounds like somebody at Air America has been guzzling too much of the DLC Hi-C.

(Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-norman/rhodes-says-air-america-b_b_94981.html)

International waters: the land the law forgot!

I have a new goal that fits this blog's theme of dissent: visiting international waters!

The other night I had a weird dream in which I goed to the beach and looked out over international wa. Homer Simpson calls international waters "the land the law forgot." And that's what makes international wa so appealing.

I've been to the ocean, but I've never been outside the territorial limit of 12 nautical miles from the shore. (In fact I've hardly been more than 12 yards from the shore.) As a landlocked Midwesterner, it's rare that I ever go near an ocean, but I'm fascinated by what geographical boundaries oceans lay in. If I ever go to the ocean again, I may try to rent a small boat and take it beyond territorial wa.

But international waters aren't as much of a "land the law forgot" as ol' Homie thinks. There's an Allowed Cloud called international law. It can be a good Allowed Cloud though: It quite rightly makes violent crimes and human rights abuses effectively illegal even in international wa. And countries may opt to exercise certain economic rights far beyond the limit of their own territorial waters (up to 200 nautical miles from land).

Other than that, it's pretty much anything goes. There's no Patriot Act in international wa, and no government censorship either. Twenty-year-olds can drink alcohol. You can even chew bubble gum with impunity. (The government of Singapore is probably going to look for ways to expand its territorial waters if it sees this entry.)

Thus, international wa can be almost an ideal society: Generally, it has only the Allowed Clouds needed to punish enemies of humanity. Hard-working, honest guys like me should be safe.

So one of these days, I'm just going to go ahead and take the plunge! Maybe bask in international wa for an hour or three. And I'll savor the fact that no law forbids me from doing anything any other reasonable person might want to do.

Frivolous lawsuit filed over Street View

This story reminds me of the "Weird Al" Yankovic song that goes, "I'm gonna sue, sue...Yes, I'm gonna sue..." It just goes to show that some people have some straaaaange ideas about what the right to privacy means.

A wealthy couple in Franklin Park, Pennsylvania - an exclusive Pittsburgh suburb - is suing Google, claiming the company's Street View feature, which has street-level photos, violates their privacy rights.

Street View photos are gathered from cameras mounted on vehicles traveling on public streets. If a house can be seen from a public road, how can it violate the residents' property rights if it happens to be visible on Street View? Privacy rights are meant to protect us from things like, say, the government keeping a log of how much allergy medicine we buy. Or banks turning over our financial information to the government. Or forced drug tests. It's the abuses like that which go on all the time that the right of privacy is supposed to protect us from.

This right doesn't cover what individuals can see from normal use of a public thoroughfare. But America has this suburban culture that expects it to anyway. Ironically this is the same philosophy that doesn't seem to be too interested in halting real violations of privacy like drug tests or parts of the Patriot Act.

The Pennsylvania plaintiffs remain undeterred. Of their expensive home purchase, the lawsuit says, "A major component of their purchase decision was a desire for privacy," despite the house being visible from a public road. And they say that Street View not only violated their privacy but also devalued their property and caused mental suffering. These complaints only show how frivolous the suit is.

Furthermore, Google has a process by which people can request that images be deleted if they have a good enough reason. But apparently the plaintiffs opted to skip this step and dive straight into lawsuit mode. They claim removing the image now won't satisfy them.

As a longtime progressive populist, I'm skeptical of any defense a large business may offer in a lawsuit. But this sounds almost like a moral panic suit, like when Jack Thompson sues over a "violent" video game. Let's be honest: Like Thompson and other moral panic types, the couple who is suing Google isn't exactly underprivileged. If they were, they wouldn't own an expensive home in a rich suburb.

This is less of a moral panic suit than a suit demanding rights to be conferred based on one's economic status.

If someone takes a photo of a street in which some houses happen to be visible, the residents have no grounds to sue. But that's exactly what this ridiculous case is all about.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080404/ap_on_hi_te/google_photo_lawsuit)

War deaths soar in March

Are Bush's cultists still going to boast about how "tHe sUrGe iS w0rKiNg lololololol"?

The Iraqi Interior Ministry says that war deaths of Iraqi civilians and security forces soared in March following a recent spike in violence in that country. An official with the ministry says, "It's obvious that the killed and wounded have increased because of the military operation in Basra and the violence that erupted across the country after the operation started."

The numbers jumped from 633 dead civilians and 701 wounded in February to 923 dead and 1,358 wounded in March. Among soldiers, it jumped from 20 dead and 22 wounded to 54 dead and 100 wounded. Among police, it zoomed from 65 dead and 122 wounded to 102 dead and 173 wounded. Meanwhile, American troop fatalities also increased.

The sinking ship known as the Republicans and the media is still insisting the war is going great? (Yes, the media still claims the surge worked, which shows how far off in Loony Loony Land they are.)

(Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/04/01/iraq.main)

School shooting confirmed

It appears that I now have a link to an article about the fatal school shooting that happened recently. The victim was a 15-year-old boy, and it happened in February in Oxnard, California:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89190872

(I received a link to the same article on MSNBC's site, but I refuse to link directly to MSNBC, following its poor edit of Michelle Obama's speech.)

I'm not even sure what to say about this story. That there's been relatively little coverage just goes to show that school violence is actually getting more overt than before, so when there is a shooting, it's just not big news like it used to be.

It is believed that the victim was killed because he was gay. He had been harassed repeatedly at school prior to the shooting. It's part of the issue of students all over the country being assailed daily for a variety of reasons. When I hear of someone being attacked at school, I have to look at it from the angle that there's only one kind of people, and that's people. And people are getting injured or killed for nothing.

Other victims are attacked for different reasons. I don't want to categorize each incident based on the motivation, but one thing is clear: School harassment is wrong for any reason - and it's the duty of a blog like this to bravely expose the evil of school harassment.

Another point that has to be made: Investigating the school where the shooting occurred, I learned it has mandatory uniforms - despite being a public school. California law requires public schools to allow students to opt out of uniforms, but I could find nothing in the school's policy giving students the ability to opt out. The liars who claim uniforms are a panacea to school violence can kindly pipe down now.

Even more ironically, the school's website - in an attempt to provide justification for uniforms - features a brief video clip of a kid extracting a zillion guns out of his non-uniform trousers. I'm pretty sure this is the same clip that was made infamous by 'Bowling For Columbine', so it's hard to see how the school expects to be taken seriously.

So a school that had uniforms and claimed it was to stop kids from bringing in guns is now the site of one of the most notorious school shootings in years. No surprise, because discipline always does seem to suffer when schools squander most of their resources enforcing Nazi dress codes instead of actually trying to keep students safe.

Ashcroft jeered for ridiculing Obama's name

I knew we'd still have to keep hearing about Bush's former Attorney General John Ashcroft, for he's the type who never shuts up.

This is the revolting Nazi who helped toss together the Patriot Act. (So much for separation of powers!) He was also known for covering up statues with curtains and generally making a laughingstock of himself.

Which he continues to do.

During a speech to college students yesterday, Ashcroft was talking about the Idiot Act and sniffed, "The elected representatives of this country, including Osama, uh, you know, nah, Obama..."

Moans and jeers immediately erupted from the audience.

Ashcroft's "slip-up" was deliberate. Anyone who saw a clip of the speech could see that.

An asinine smirk started to form on Ashcroft's ugly mug, but then you could tell he finally realized - albeit too late - that he had crossed a line. The jeers caught him off guard. He apparently didn't know he was speaking at a relatively liberal campus and not at my former high school (where the Bush crime family's followers would have cheered him and incited a violent riot against anyone who dissented).

Nazi-like digs about Barack Obama's name are what America has to prepare for from the spittle contingent this year. On the other hand, this will help us keep track of how many other sleazebags like John Ashcroft there are in the GOP agitprop machine. Real Americans don't attack Obama's name in the manner that Ashcroft did.

(Source: http://www.local6.com/video/15782055)

"Mandatory volunteerism": It's not just for students anymore!

It's bad enough that schools are so fanatical about imposing the oxymoronic idea of "mandatory volunteerism" on students. But not surprising, because indentured servitude is what the American school system is all about.

Now they're trying to force parents to also work without pay for the schools. A new bill in Ohio would require all parents in the state to perform 13 hours of unpaid labor every school year for the school system in the district where they live. Parents who fail to carry out this requirement face a $100 fine. If they don't pay the fine, the $100 gets taken from their tax refund.

Of course, this means people who are well-off enough not to get a refund don't have to worry about being penalized for not fulfilling the forced labor requirement. Just like with all the "mandatory volunteerism" programs for students, those who are relatively privileged to begin with don't have to follow the requirement like everyone else.

What is this again about schools being for the students? Well, I knew that was a lie, because every gimmick that a school system launches is always done to satisfy a demand by Big Business, not because it benefits the students. Schools mold our young people into cheap, docile labor.

Instead of a public service (in this case, schools) serving the public, the public is now serving the public service. Schools are supposed to work for the public, not the other way around.

In addition, this right-wing bill blatantly violates the Constitution's ban on involuntary unpaid labor.

What an incredibly dumb idea this bill is!

If Kentucky had this law, do you think I'd have any desire now to work for, say, the Campbell County Schools without being paid? Honestly, what do I owe them, besides a middle finger?

There's a lot of school systems that think everyone owes them. America's schools have been a mechanism for totalitarian social control, and lawmakers need to be limiting schools' power - not letting schools squeeze forced labor out of students and parents.

(Source: http://www.local6.com/education/15775391/detail.html)

Another hang-up phone call!

It's happened again, for the second time in only 3 days!

Another untraceable hang-up phone call at 3:14 PM today!

Is "the industry" behind this too, like I suspect they're behind the virus and the other harassing phone call that struck this week?

What a baby Ed Rendell sounds like

You're hilarious, Ed!

Allegedly Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania - a supporter of many conservative proposals - likes to keep an eye out for dissent against the DLC order.

The Democratic Leadership Council is of course the group that gutted the Democratic Party's defining stances and helped make a needless struggle of every election of the past 15 years. So it's not like they're interested in helping the party or anything.

Central to Rendell's vomit-inducing DLC elitism is his acceptance of the right-wing media myth that states the media has been disproportionately favorable to Barack Obama. (Note the irony of the media again spreading a lie about its own coverage as an excuse to move even further to the right.) Rendell has cried for months that the media has been too strongly for Obama but against Hillary Clinton.

Anyone can see that the actual, you know, facts are quite the opposite of what Ed Rendell claims. The media has pushed since the last "election" was over for Clinton to win the primary (because then they know the GOP will win in November), while cobbling together baseless hit pieces against Obama almost weekly. But Rendell presses on and makes a fool of himself in the process. He actually praised Fox News for having what he considers the most accurate campaign coverage. He told one Fox host, "I think during this entire primary coverage, starting in Iowa and up to the present, Fox has done the fairest job, has remained the most objective of all the cable networks."

Rendell's humor routine continues. He complained that "some of the other stations are just caught up with Sen. Obama" and that in the eyes of the media "Sen. Obama can do no wrong, and Sen. Clinton can do no right."

The embittered Pennsylvania governor also attacked MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, asking, "Does Keith Olbermann get checks from the Obama campaign?" So Rendell is making false accusations that Barack Obama is paying off TV commentators?

In my whole life, I don't think there's ever been a presidential candidate who's been the target of this amount of malice by the media this far along in the campaign as Obama has. I thought Michael Dukakis was the media's archnemesis, but this is fucking ridiculous!

All this right at the same time Rendell opened up state forests to oil and gas drilling. Oil and gas drilling in what were previously protected forests? Not real bright, Ed.

(Source: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/3/125931/8438/389/481671)

States and cities sue Bush EPA for not following law

A year ago, the Supreme Court properly ruled that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are air pollutants (a fact that anyone could see) and must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The ruling was prompted by the Bush regime's failure to enforce that law. The Supremes promptly ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to act.

But Bush is like, "A law? What law?" Bush's EPA has refused to take a single damn step in complying with the court's order.

So now 17 states, the District of Columbia, and the cities of New York and Baltimore are suing the EPA to try to make it follow the order that it's been ignoring.

The Supreme Court's ruling was (to use former Iraqi dictator Paul Bremer's favorite phrase) a binding instruction or directive, George, you idiot.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080402/ap_on_re_us/greenhouse_gases)

I have an anagram...for you!

Because yesterday was April Fools' Day - a/k/a George W. Bush Day - it would have been a keen day for this entry. But it's never too late for a clever anagram!

Years ago, it was discovered that rearranging the letters in "Spiro Agnew" formed the words "Grow a penis." Now there's a new anagram out, so read it and peep...

Rearrange the letters in:

"The environmental policy of George Bush's administration"

And you get:

"A dominant governor protecting the family oil business, eh?"

Pretty nifty, huh?

More about the computer attack!

Cue the piano music from the silent movies, as we look back at the history of computer virus attacks against my home office!

In 2003, I got hit by the feared Swen virus. I'm pretty sure I was targeted because I was on a progressive e-mail list. Swen wouldn't have harmed me but for the fact that the version of Outlook Express that was in vogue at the time automatically opened e-mail attachments (a feature that was one of the all-time most miserable moments in computing history).

The computer was ru. It was disheartening to start up the machine only to be faced with the hip, leafy background screen with none of my desktop items or the taskbar.

Undeterred, I buyed a new computer to replace the one Swen destroyed. I believe viruses also led to the demise of that computer in 2006 (though it could have been hardware damage incurred the day when the electricity kept rapidly going off and back on).

My current machine replaced that one. It's practically sparkling new, but within the past couple days it's been hit too. On Monday night, an error message popped up declaring that the virus detection software was shutting down. But it was still running. Yesterday, however, the computer was so slow I could barely use it. It took 15 minutes just to start up - and wouldn't start up at all if I didn't wait that long to try opening a folder. I had to start it about 5 times to get it working, and still it was slow.

Then, while I was writing an entry for this blog, the word processor announced it couldn't save the file. No way, no how. When I closed the file and tried reopening it, it said it was corrupted.

If my computer breaks, the 'Pail suffers. It suffers, I starve. This blog is more than just an adventure - it's a job! So (as Batman used to say in the old 'Super Friends' cartoons), I had to act quickly! As far as I know, the virus has been removed, but I worked all day cleaning up the mess it made. (I make backups frequently, precisely because of this ever-present threat.)

I find it rather interesting that the virus appeared on the very same day that: 1) I posted an entry linking to photos of my roadside protests against abusive teen confinement centers; and 2) the page that I linked to started linking here. Maybe the chickens have finally started coming home to roost for "the industry", and they can't deal with it. I think someone representing the teen torture racket didn't like what I have to say, so they somehow sent a virus through my Web browser. People connected to "the industry" have a history of doing stuff like this.

Isn't it also very strange that the virus only seemed to infect that one file, as if they knew what to look for?

And isn't it also weird that I got a hang-up phone call that couldn't be traced at 6:42 PM yesterday? That's not a new problem, but that it would happen within a day after the virus attack is suspicious.

I think "the industry" is behind the virus, and I think it's behind the phone call. I had my first dealings with this racket when I was going on 17, and I can tell you that these confinement centers are not run by nice people. If I've made any enemies who would have the ability to have a virus sent here, the teen gulag industry would be one of the top culprits. You only need to look at how many high-ranking politicians have links with these facilities.

Harassers put boy in intensive care; school denies incident

Many of you remember brats from school who made it their mission to gang up on and harass a schoolmate every chance they got. Usually it starts with verbal attacks, and quickly it escalates into physical violence. If left unchecked, it can go on for years.

With schools' deliberate inaction, victims are often left wondering how long it will be before the violence puts them in the hospital. But the serial harassers are slick, and they usually try to make sure they dish out just the right amount of violence to keep it from happening. That way, they can keep at it. With that, school administraitors (sic) who side with the harassers can lie and say the harassment never happened. Without a serious injury, it's the victim's word against the school's.

But now this national shame has deepened to the point where you hear of kids being hospitalized or worse. I was told that a high school student was recently shot to death by a school bully. I don't know the details or what state this was in, but I believe it happened, despite the lack of coverage.

Now an 11-year-old boy from Brickett Elementary School in Lynn, Massachusetts, has been brutalized so severely that he's in the hospital, paralyzed from the chest down. It happened when a group of assailants pushed the boy down a flight of steps at school. There were witnesses to the assault. At first, it appeared the resulting injury was mild enough for him to finish the day at school, but he did go to the nurse's office because of damage to his leg.

When he woke up the following day, the symptoms were severe enough that the boy was taken to the hospital. Now he is paralyzed and has a collapsed lung and a tracheotomy tube, as he remains in intensive care.

All this is bad enough, but the reaction of the school system (which is now facing a lawsuit from the youngster's family) makes this story even more disgraceful. The school system claims there's no evidence the boy was ever pushed down the stairs at school.

What??? There were eyewitnesses! The school is standing there denying something that had witnesses?

An outrage, certainly. But, sadly, not a surprise.

If you were a victim of serial school harassers, you might find the school's defense to be an all-too-familiar meme. Arrogant school officials - when confronted with evidence of a dangerous attack in their school - will often cry that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax to frame the bullies. In this case, however, I can't imagine that the school's defense is going to wash, considering the victim has been hospitalized for weeks.

There are also witnesses to other attacks against the student going back months before this assault.

Now that kids are winding up in the hospital - or getting killed - are schools going to keep getting away with denying they have a harassment problem?

(Source: http://www.thedailyitemoflynn.com/articles/2008/04/01/news/news01.txt)

Government ignores laws in border fence boondoggle

Yet another story about the embarrassing boondoggle known as the new fence that the United States government is building along the border with Mexico. Yes, this is the same fence for which the alleged superpatriots who constitute the Bush regime won't even buy American-made steel. This is also the same fence that is expected to wear out within 25 years, after millions of dollars were invested in it. Not exactly what I call fiscal discipline.

Regardless of where you stand on the immigration issue, you'll probably agree that the fence is already a waste of money - and that the government should at least be using American-made materials for it. (Instead they use Chinese-made steel.) Throughout the border fence controversy, the regime has been more interested in weenie-waving bluster and demagoguery than in constructive, realistic ideas.

Now it's reported that the Bush regime plans to disobey over 30 laws and government regulations in the drive to finish several hundred miles of fencing by the end of the year. These waivers were authorized by Congress while it was GOP-controlled, and would let the government defy long-standing environmental laws - some of which are not federal, but are state or local laws.

Um. What was this again about the Republicans being for states' rights? The states need to have their state and local police out enforcing the laws. If they have to arrest the feds for not following the law, then that's what they must do.

Otherwise, I guess laws are just pieces of paper, right, George?

(Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-04-01-border-fence_N.htm)

Assholes infect computer (again)

It happened again today or last night: My computer got hit by a virus.

I've spent the day cleaning it up, but there's still a lot of work to do.

And yes, I believe it was "the industry." A few of you know what I mean by "the industry" (namely, the behavior modification industry), but I'll go into more detail about it later.