Cheney indicted!

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

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

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

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

Hunger up 50% in a year

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More DLC wussiness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Plop plop fizz fizz...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Superbug epidemic expands

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Republicans the next third party?

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

They're called...the Republicans!

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

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

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

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

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

How the states got their shapes

By bipping. That's how.

Just joking!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lawmaker dressed for failure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What a fucking fool.

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

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

TB pandemic lurks?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lungren sits on board of Sembler cult

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disabled next on right-wing hit list?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roughed-up protester wins thousands!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everyone loves the Gum Fighter from the Hubba Bubba commercials.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summer saved for me; lives saved for others?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So the joke's on them.

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

KKK must pay millions for beating

Ha ha!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Open thread

Another media war on a private citizen?

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

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

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

Why?

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

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

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

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

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

The media wonders why nobody trusts it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Right-wing lawmaker sued by son

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

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

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

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

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

Students banned from wearing scarves

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gee, no bias there!

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

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

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

Um, yes, KOKI. They are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We really can't stand Bush in Kentucky

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Talk about a double standard!

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

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

Operative tries to debunk Palin story - and fails

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

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

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

Isn't that convenient?

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

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

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

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

(Source: AP)

Private profanity police

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grow up, will ya?

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

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

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

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

Ohioans not giving green light to red light cams

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's getting louder!

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

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

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

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

The Republicans losted. They need to get over it.

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

Water! ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

There's no wa!

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

I guess there is wa after all!

Supremes gut Navy sonar ruling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

University student jailed for supporting Obama

Nazism has been on the march in one university town.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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