Captain Lou Albano dies

Another celebrity has died: Professional wrestler and wrestling manager Captain Lou Albano died this morning at the age of 76.

As you may recall, Albano's music video appearances (particularly with Cyndi Lauper) influenced the "rock and wrestling connection" of the mid-'80s.

(Source: http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/Other_News_4/article_36012.shtml)

Apartment complex makes residents remove flags from cars

If I lived in an apartment where the owner made me remove my Green Party signs from the Peace Bike, I'd be the first to stand up for my Greenly rights (to paraphrase Oscar the Grouch).

Hopefully, folks in Albany, Oregon, will follow the same policy I'd follow if confronted by such a ghastly Allowed Cloud.

An apartment complex there has demanded that residents remove American flags from their own cars and motorcycles.

Apartment managers say it's because American flags might offend Albany's diverse population. But in all honesty, I don't think that's the reason at all. If they were protecting diversity, why would the managers try to make everyone more alike by not letting them put a flag on their car? In fact, the apartment complex reportedly flies the flag itself on ads for apartments.

If they can use the flag for advertising, why can't they let tenants display the flag on their own vehicles for noncommercial purposes?

This isn't about diversity. This is about greed and control. The apartment complex must be owned by some powerful management firm that wants to show off the power it has to discourage anyone from questioning their wealth.

Managers of this development know it's an absurd situation that such a small group of corporations owns so much of the country's land - and that people have to deal with this bureaucracy just to enjoy what once came so much easier. So they try to control what people do and hope that nobody'll fight.

Although the complex has threatened to evict residents who don't comply with the flag ban, that would be illegal on several fronts. Of course, that's not to say they won't try - and possibly succeed. The system is stacked with judges and other public officials who think nobody has a right to display the flag on their own car, but that the "property rights" of corporations that own apartment complexes are sacrosanct and trump all other rights.

Maybe it's time for the government to step in and say that faceless for-profit corporations can't own residences.

(Source: http://www.katu.com/news/local/64059697.html)

I don't like where this is headed...

I've had a police radio scanner for years, and many average folks like me have used their scanners to help the cops catch criminals.

Now authorities in Tulsa say meth cooks are misusing scanners to stay ahead of the police.

That's bad enough on its own, but I don't like where this is going. At all.

With the "let's ban everything" regimen expanding in America for over a quarter-century, I don't think I need to tell you where this is headed.

The government has already made it illegal to buy Sudafed without signing a log or to purchase more than a small amount within a certain time frame. You know somebody in the government is going to be looking at your scanner as the next thing to ban.

In fact, I GUARANTEE you they're already thinking of banning scanners as I write this.

Like the Sudafed ban, the scanner ban will be praised by the drug warriors as a much-needed effort, and the usual intimidation will be employed to quash dissent and manipulate public opinion. This cycle has been played out so many times in recent years that the "let's ban everything" crowd knows they can get their way.

Enough is enough.

(Source: http://www.fox23.com/mostpopular/story/Meth-Makers-Using-Police-Scanners/2ojngdshZ0C_GI-XDKqfnQ.cspx)

Tea Party co-founder owed IRS a half-million

The false notion that the Tea Party farces that began early this year are a grassroots movement was debunked months ago when it was found to be bankrolled by right-wing think tanks and corporations, often with links to the misnamed Citizens for a Sound Economy.

The BTPers' facade continues to crumble.

Jenny Beth Martin is considered a co-founder of the hypocritical Tea Party movement, and she has been granted numerous media interviews. But now it turns out that she and her husband Lee owed the IRS over $500,000.

Gee, Jenny, why are you so fed up with taxes, when you didn't pay your taxes?

Also, USA Today reports that Jenny Beth Martin is a "former paid consultant" for Republican candidates. Her own blog suggests she is still working as a paid partisan consultant.

In other words, she's not an average citizen but is yet another well-off exurban GOP operative - of the same sort that's been shouting down everyone else for 15 years.

I get it now: In conservaworld, you can avoid paying taxes, and - presto! - you're a freedom fighter. That's how the LOSEianne crowd "thinks."

(Source: http://chattahbox.com/us/2009/10/09/anti-tax-tea-party-co-founder-owed-irs-half-a-million-dollars)

Taitz to judge: Kiss my grits!

Orly Taitz's post-election sore loser syndrome and Jack Thompson-like legal incompetence continue.

Taitz has already induced laughs at her own expense by misspelling her own name on legal filings and submitting hoax documents. Now Judge Clay Land has fined Taitz $20,000.

What's Taitz's response? She's not paying the fine, of course.

Taitz said of the judge, "So he didn't recuse himself?" You're hilarious, Orly.

Land has vowed to refer the delusional legal eagle to the U.S. Attorney's office if she doesn't pay the fine within 30 days.

A commenter on another website said of Taitz's antics, "Jail and/or a mental hospital are distinct possibilities."

Meanwhile, I've noticed another "separated at birth" analogy, like that between Mike Huckabee and Gomer Pyle.

Orly Taitz:



Polly Holliday as Flo of 'Alice':



The Orly Taitz saga would make a hilarious sitcom, don't you think?

(Source: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/birther_orly_taitz_responds_to_judges_20k_fine_sho.php?ref=fpblg)

Market opened for Chinese chicken imports

"Free trade" means that in the United States, every country's laws apply - except those of the United States.

The Bush regime had planned to allow Chinese chicken imports in 2007 - but Congress said no. Among other issues, inspections of Chinese poultry plants had revealed poor sanitary conditions.

But now Congress is opening the American market to Chinese chicken. It's good for "relations", you understand.

The potential for disaster is alarming, because of China's bad track record on safety of food and other products. China has been the source of melamine-tainted milk and sulfur-laden drywall that has ruined entire houses.

So - after countless Americans have lost their jobs in the New Economy - get ready for more foreign-made goods flooding store shelves.

Week 9 of POOP

As Google's post removal tool remains completely broken with no fix in sight, a rather interesting story emerged several days ago.

Google finally repaired its long-broken Usenet search engine - which folks had been complaining was broken for well over a year. Google said they fixed it after reading a piece in Wired about its wrecked condition.

That's more proof Google doesn't read its own help forums. They didn't even know one of its key features was out of order until they read about it in Wired!

That means we're going to have to keep exposing Google's failure to repair its post removal tool until a site like Wired picks up the story. Clearly, that's the only way it's ever going to be fixed, since Google stopped reading its own help forums.

Meanwhile, thin-skinned private school representatives clutter the help forums to demand that Google censor groups that dare to criticize the school. Google won't do enough to protect innocent individuals' privacy and control of their own works, yet some idiot is out there trying to make Google screen free speech.

Talk about misplaced priorities!

Schwarzenegger vetoes restrictions on insurer greed

I'm starting to suspect that the compartment of Arnold Schwarzenegger's brain that's supposed to sift out bad political ideas must have dried to a useless husk years ago.

Recently, California lawmakers passed a bill to rein in health insurers' greed-driven attempts to retroactively drop sick patients' coverage.

Schwarzenegger could have been an adult and signed the bill. But nope. He vetoed it.

Now there's a way to win back voters to the Republican fold - not!

(Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/10/schwarzenegger-bill.html)

Cop assaults special ed student

When it rains, it pours.

In Dolton, Illinois, a 15-year-old student who attends special ed because of a learning disability was assaulted by a police officer roaming the school. The cop grabbed him, cussed him out, threw him to the ground, beat him, and almost suffocated him.

The teen's "crime"? His shirttail wasn't tucked in. (A capital offense for sure!)

The police assault that resulted from the student's minor breach of school etiquette was caught on videotape.

The boy's nose was broken in the incident.

Now it turns out that the police officer involved in this attack had previously gunned down his former wife's new husband in front of their children. He shot the man 24 times, killing him.

Why was this menace still a cop after he needlessly shot and killed a man?

The story thickens: Now, in yet another incident, the officer is charged with the brutal rape of an Indiana woman.

Meanwhile, a lawsuit may be filed over the school attack.

(Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/07/crimesider/entry5368597.shtml;
http://carlosmiller.com/2009/10/09/cop-who-beat-student-for-untucked-shirt-jailed-on-rape-charges)

6-year-old faces reform school over spoon

If a first-grader who joined the Cub Scouts and regularly wears a suit and tie to school isn't safe from the "zero tolerance" thought police, who is?

In Newark, Delaware, a 6-year-old student took his Cub Scouts camping utensil to school. It's a combination of a spoon, fork, and knife - not unlike a fast food spork.

You'd think the school would be proud of him for joining the Cub Scouts. But instead, the school accused him of violating the "zero tolerance" weapons policy. Now he faces 45 days in reform school.

How right-wing is that?

If the school doesn't allow spoons, how do kids eat lunch? Do they lap up soup with their heads in the bowl, like a dog?

The America we once knew is dead, I'm afraid.

"Zero tolerance" policies were developed primarily to give schools an excuse to punish victims of bullying instead of the perpetrators. Notice that serial harassers are never punished, as the schools defend them as folk heroes. But it's also a win for school officials who just want everyone under their control to be molded into docile spokes in the corporatist wheel.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/education/12discipline.html)

Honduran dictator further restricts free speech

Jim DeMint and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen violated the Logan Act to meet this tyrant?

De facto Honduran dictator Roberto Micheletti is now taking new steps to muzzle journalistic freedom - after he broke a pledge to remove restrictions he had already imposed.

Micheletti's new law allows the government to close down media outlets it disagrees with. He has already used his existing measures to shutter media organizations.

At least he's being more transparent than the censorious control freaks behind the U.S. telcom law "overhaul" of '96 were.

(Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE59925L20091010)

The return of the Gum Fighter! (Bubble Gum Weekend)

Once Don Collier's Gum Fighter character cleared up initial misunderstandings about Hubba Bubba bubble gum, the product was a smash hit.

At first, gum connoisseurs feared that Hubba Bubba's "no-stick" bubbles meant that the bubbles wouldn't pop in a person's face. Bubbles not bursting in one's face would defeat the entire purpose of bubbling. But the Gum Fighter's ads proved that the bubbles did indeed pop in one's face - and that the burst gum was easy to remove from one's skin.

Hubba Bubba sales soared upon this discovery. So much so that stores ran out of the stuff!

Bubble Yum faced a similar supply-and-demand problem several years earlier, when it had to curtail its own marketing (Flavor Fiend and all) so production could meet the amazing demand.

The grueling Hubba Bubba shortage was highlighted in this 1980 commersh featuring the Gum Fighter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wSBPjBmLyE

Man, I feel so sorry for the people in that Western town for having to do without Hubba Bubba for so long. Most Americans these days only have to do without little things like health care or reliable employment. But the folks in that ad had to do without Hubba Bubba! Can you imagine?

But once again, the Gum Fighter saved the day!

State employee fired for disagreeing with Jindal

Nice to know Louisiana has its own version of Ernie Fletcher.

Right-wing Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has fired a state employee all because she disagreed with his ill-conceived plans to privatize state services.

But Jindal says the woman was fired because of poor performance during Hurricane Katrina. Uh, Bobby? That was 4 years ago. If her performance was so poor then, why wasn't she fired long ago?

Rule by Bobby Jindal means no criticism is tolerated. Jindal has a history of trying to fire public employees who disagree with him.

It's illegal to fire someone for their politics. If there's not a lawsuit against the Jindal administration, I'll just utterly bip.

(Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/09/jindal-fires-state-employ_n_315631.html)

Berlusconi calls himself most persecuted man in history

Right-wing dictators have it rough in life, I guess.

After a rough week for Italy's corrupt leader Silvio Berlusconi, he had the nerve to call himself "absolutely the most persecuted man by the judiciary in all of the history of the entire world."

Citing the more than 100 investigations against him, Berlusconi complained, "Over the years, I have spent €200 million on consultants and judges, sorry, consultants and lawyers." The people in the room burst out laughing at this Freudian slip.

This follows a court's finding that Berlusconi was "co-responsible for corruption" because the media empire he owns had bribed a judge.

Berlusconi also claims a recent ruling that stripped him of legal immunity was politically motivated because he is a "natural obstacle to the Left." He called himself the "best Prime Minster ever" and just can't understand all the "persecution" against him.

"Persecution"??? He tries to make it sound like he's Nelson Mandela or something.

I bet Silvio Berlusconi was never expelled from school 4 times because of a ridiculous grudge by school officials, had his newsletter deleted from Internet newsgroups because of its political stance, or been arrested for "trespassing" because of his politics. Berlusconi doesn't know the meaning of persecution. He's nothing but a big right-wing crybaby who thinks the world owes him.

(Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6868296.ece)

Soldier suspended from high school over pocketknife in car

Aah! Fall!

Scarlet leaves on the trees. Jack-o'-lanterns. The satisfying autumn breeze.

And the start of a new school year. Which means it's time for more daily "zero tolerance" outrages!

This one comes to us from Lansingburgh, New York.

At Lansingburgh Senior High School, a high school senior was suspended for 20 days after officials found a 2-inch pocketknife in his car. The knife was a gift from his grandfather and was part of an emergency kit.

The student is already a soldier: He has completed Army basic training. Furthermore, he has received commendations from a local city for saving a woman's life.

This blog is as pacifist as any - but by golly, I will defend soldiers who are under assault by right-wing high school policies that have no logic whatsoever. New York law says pocketknives aren't even weapons, so why does the school think it can suspend a student for having one in his car as part of an emergency kit? A car is more of a weapon than the knife is.

Frankly, the school officials are not very patriotic.

Why did the school suspect he even had the knife? The article I read is unclear, but it sounds to me like they searched his car without probable cause - which is illegal.

There may be a lawsuit against the school district - which kind of puts a damper on schools' claims that "zero tolerance" policies help them avoid litigation.

A lawsuit over schools' "zero tolerance" tyranny is years overdue.

(Source: http://www.wten.com/global/story.asp?s=11283345&ClientType=Printable)

Sorry, but welfare "reform" is a failure

This is as much a story about the media's manipulation of public opinion as it is about the meanness and utter failure of the 1996 welfare "reform" law.

An op-ed by Peter Cove and Lee Bowes appeared in the far-right New York Post today complaining that America is headed back to the "bad old days" (in the subheader's words) before welfare "reform" passed. The piece says that it's "unthinkable that we should roll back welfare reform."

"Unthinkable"? I've been thinking of it for the past 13 years! We should roll it back, as it didn't increase employment - or improve jobs' quality, safety, or pay.

Repealing the welfare "reform" act would be one of my first efforts if I was elected to Congress. This is one position I've never backed down from, because the chronic recession of the New Economy has proven me right.

What's really the "bad old days"? Before 1996, or after?

Bowes and Cove are actually stage-managing public opinion by saying the dissenting view is "unthinkable" and acting as if legislators are going too far towards rolling back the 1996 law.

The writers complain about too much being done for poor families - but they don't raise a peep about handouts for big banks and other corrupt organizations that are already swimming in dough.

The government policy in recent years towards big corporations has been, "Here's more money. Buy your CEO another jet." But if you're an individual who was born poor and never had the opportunities or clout that others had, you're on your own.

The Republicans are wondering why they don't win any Nobel Prizes for peace - but they certainly don't deserve any for economics either.

Private school principal admits to sex with boy

If this story involved the principal of a public school, it would make national news. It would be a media circus, in fact.

But it's a private school, so the story receives only a brief mention even in papers in the state where it occurred.

The principal of a Catholic elementary school in Whitesville, Kentucky, has been arrested because she had sex with an under-age boy. She has admitted to the encounters.

The principal is also facing 4 counts of supplying kids with alcohol.

Some "values-based" school leadership, huh?

(Source: http://www.kypost.com/content/news/commonwealth/story/Report-Principal-Admits-To-Sex-With-Boy-15/8JYlAV9AJkqTG7spJRkCGQ.cspx)

Ed Meese opens his mouth

But who gives a shit about the ravings of someone who wasted taxpayer dollars on a frenzied report about porn when there were so many more pressing issues to worry about?

Meese is also the same man who absurdly said, "If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect."

What's next? A James Watt speech?

Vermont schools becoming a right-wing cult?

If there were any doubts that America's schools have become a soul-smashing cult, the fact that this is going on in Vermont of all places will dash those doubts.

Vermont's board of education has just confirmed a new deputy commish who has a rather, uh, interesting record. She has served as a director of several programs for troubled teens, some of which have been confirmed to be abusive right-wing cults. (One of these cults was the site of several deaths.)

A cult leader is in charge of Vermont public schools? You expect this in Kentucky, not Vermont.

Not only that, but she has also been in charge of how the state spends stimulus money.

Having cult leaders in charge of stimulus spending and public education is sure to be an automatic disaster, but it's not as if they aren't already running our schools - as America's schools already border on being a cult.

Indeed, there's a web of people who have their paws in our schools and abusive youth programs simultaneously. When a baby sticks their fingers in all the desserts at a party, chunks of cake usually end up in the sherbet, and vice versa. Well, that's what this is like, as large hunks of youth confinement programs are deposited in our schools, and vice versa.

Abusive programs recruit in our schools, and the schools allow it - because they share much of the same web of folks. And this story highlights this phenomenon as never before.

(Source: http://www.vermontbiz.com/news/october/rae-ann-knopf-appointed-vermont-deputy-commissioner-education;
http://isaccorp.org)

Ohio lets utilities hike reconnection fee

Since this is a day in which the sun rose in the east and will set in the west, utility companies have demanded a fee hike - and Ohio's so-called regulators have happily let them help themselves to it.

PUCO - Ohio's regulation body - recently allowed utility companies to nearly double their reconnection fee from $20 to $36. Because utilities wanted it, you see.

Consumer advocates are outraged - especially because of all the disconnections resulting from the recession, which in turn was caused largely by the same brand of corporate greed behind the fee hikes!

This is of course the same PUCO that cut off the public's access to city streets - against the city's wishes. In Puke-O's world, taxpayers can't even use their own roads, but utility companies can do what they want.

All this while utility companies often illegally shut off power to houses while they are being sold - just so they can charge the reconnection fee.

(Source: http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=cincinnati&sParam=31767571.story)

Americans back public option almost 2-to-1

To hear the booger-eater contingent at Free Republic talk, you'd think America was on the brink of a conservative revolution.

But this is a bluff, and we're calling it.

For reasons unknown, Quinnipiac University - like Rasmussen - is an outlier among pollsters. Quinnipiac usually oversamples Republicans to such a degree that one has to wonder if their polls aren't of Steve Forbes fan newsgroups.

But even Quinnipiac can't completely ignore the GOP's current dire straits. Quinnipiac has a new detailed poll that shows not only crumbling GOP support - but also growing support for health care reform that includes a public option.

Despite Quinnipiac's perennial oversampling of Republicans, its new poll shows Americans support the public option 61% to 34% (with the remainder undecided). With that in mind, actual support for it must be well over 70%.

The trends over time though may be more significant. This poll shows the Republicans get their lowest grades since Obama was elected. Voters have a 53% to 25% unfavorable view of the GOP - which is even worse than the 52% to 36% unfavorable rating the Republicans had last November.

Only 29% of voters think congressional Republicans are even acting in good faith.

All this while the Democrats bleed support too. But while the Democrats lose backing, the Republicans are losing theirs at least as quickly - and didn't have as much to spare from the get-go.

Arrogance of power doesn't pay.

(Source: http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1382)

Sore losers think petition can overturn election

I laughed out loud when I saw this!

Did you know that if an election doesn't go your way, you can circulate a petition to remove the winning candidate from office?

You can - according to a crew of right-wing sore losers who have started a Facebook group to that effect.

Their group is called "Petition to Remove the Communist Regime of B. Hussein Obama." I swear I'm not making this up.

Hey, I think the next time I don't like the result of an election, I'll just circulate a petition. That'll show 'em!

What does this Facebook group consist of? Nothing of value. Just the same incoherent, racist rants that fill other right-wing circle jerks these days. One glance at their group, and you can tell they're not exactly Mensa material.

It's nice to know these dumb losers have time to go on Facebook and rant at each other - and display how little they know about how the government works.

Quadriplegic gets bedsores from hospital stay

This is the latest horror story about the state of American health care.

Just outside New York City, a traffic crash victim was taken to the hospital with a spinal cord injury. The accident left him a quadriplegic.

While he was hospitalized, the hospital's failure to perform simple procedures led him to develop severe bedsores. His lawyer said the bedsores were so bad that they went "all the way down to the bone."

The bedsores had to be surgically closed. The sores also delayed his physical rehabilitation for so long that he is forever unable to rebuild his upper body strength.

Now the man has won a lawsuit against the hospital. And he deserves every penny.

Before the corporatists start babbling again about how we need tort "reform" before reforming anything else, this entry should put that notion to rest. If we had the rightists' vision of tort "reform", the patient in this story would have been out of luck. He would never have been able to win a significant award for the poor care he received.

Meanwhile, suits by money-grubbing health care companies against patients go uncontrolled. Just look at the court dockets for the counties in your area.

(Source: http://www.lohud.com/article/20091005/NEWS01/910050325/Crash-victim-awarded--2.2M-for-bedsores-from-hospital-stay)

Berlusconi loses legal immunity

Italy's billionaire right-wing dictator Silvio Berlusconi embodies the essence of today's Far Right.

Berlusconi deregulates Big Business but uses "virtue campaigns" to regiment personal behavior. He also censored journalists who planned to publish embarrassing photos taken at a lavish New Year's Eve party he threw for his friends. The Berlusconi regime ordered the photos to be seized by authorities.

But now Berlusconi's power may be crumbling.

Berlusconi's regime enacted a law giving him immunity from prosecution as long as he's in office. This law let him withdraw from several important cases, including one in which he was accused of bribing a lawyer to give false evidence.

But now Italy's highest court has annulled this statute, because it violated the constitutional guarantee of citizens being equal before the law.

What does Silvio Berlusconi say about this? His spokesman cried that the court's ruling is "politically motivated."

He thinks expecting politicians to not be above the law is "politically motivated"?

Now that foreign dictators are expected to obey the law like everyone else, hopefully retroactive immunity can be revoked from telcom companies in America that conspired with the Bush regime to spy on American citizens.

(Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8295716.stm;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/30/AR2009053000537.htm)

There once was a Muppet named... ('Sesame Street' Wednesday)

'Sesame Street' is a whole brave new world just waiting to be saluted with adult satire.

And since you're reading this blog, you're probably old enough for it. If not, ask a responsible adult to pre-screen this entry.

'Sesame Street' teaches kids letters and numbers using creative vignettes that often include songs or poetry. For instance, this sketch about the letter 'L' uses a limerick:



A limerick, huh?

Since we're on the topic of limericks, here's some creative adult limericks about 'Sesame Street' characters:

There once was a Muppet named Bert
Who wore a funny striped shirt
His wiener got bitten
By one of his pigeons
And poor ol' Bert said, "That hurt!"

There once was a frog named Kermit
Who owned a brothel without a permit
It spread the syph
To Sully and Biff
Forcing the health department to burn it

'L'. Limerick.

Wal-Mart must pay millions for discrimination

The world's largest retailer receives another black eye - and deservedly so.

After a female pharmacist at a Wal-Mart in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, was fired for asking to be paid as much as less experienced male colleagues who did the same work, she sued. A jury awarded her $1,000,000 in compensatory damages plus $1,000,000 in punitive damages.

Outrageously, the judge gutted the jury's decision and revoked the punitive award.

But now the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has reinstated the entire award - so Wal-Mart must pay the entire $2,000,000 it owes. In this 7 to 0 ruling, the court agreed with the jury decision that the retail giant acted with a "discriminatory animus" when it fired the pharmacist.

Hopefully, the woman will be able to collect the money Wal-Mart owes her. But you can bet your bippus Wal-Mart is going to find a way to avoid paying.

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gaecXZqluQNmot-MiNrbXtY0nDNQD9B549BO0)

More right-wing lawmakers visit Honduran dictator

After Jim DeMint led his delegation of clowns to Honduras to schmooze with right-wing dictator Roberto Micheletti, more of our so-called representatives have followed suit. This also follows a delegation organized this past summer by right-wing Rep. Connie Mack IV of Florida.

Now 3 Republican congresscritters from Florida have embarked on a fact-finding mission to see their favorite dictator du jour. (Micheletti is the new Lee Kuan Yew.)

The visit by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and brothers Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart (who all supported the violent coup that put Micheletti in power) has the purported aim of encouraging the U.S. to back the Micheletti regime.

Like the delegations by DeMint and Mack, Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balarts are violating the Logan Act.

One also has to ask a far more urgent question: Are the lawmakers who have been involved in these trips plotting further action in Honduras? Had they already been involved in plotting the coup that took place there?

And are they plotting with Micheletti to launch a coup to overthrow the U.S. government? I firmly believe they are. There's little doubt in my mind.

Meanwhile, DeMint has been singlehandedly blocking Senate votes on important presidential appointments. (Aren't the Democrats supposed to be in control of the Senate?) Micheletti's coup leaders have also issued a decree banning protests by dissidents and closing media outlets that oppose the coup.

When will Republican lawmakers stop undermining America's foreign policy?

(Source: http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2009/10/supporters_of_coup_3_florida_g.html)

School fines 10-year-old for sleeping

The modern American school system at work, folks.

In our day, school was school. If a kid fell asleep, the teacher might tap their desk, scold them for their inattentiveness, and let it go.

Today, however, the school drugs the kid, makes a scene, calls the cops, and fines them back to the Stone Age.

At Travis Elementary School in El Paso, a 10-year-old student almost surely had to empty his piggy bank after being caught sleeping in class.

For starts, he had fallen asleep because he was being drugged for a "behavior disorder."

Then the teacher physically restrained him after he fell asleep again. Restrain him from what? Who could he possibly hurt while he was asleep?

Then the boy left the class and laid down on the floor in the hall.

The school promptly gave him a $260 ticket, and police charged him with a misdemeanor.

It's unclear whether the school called the police, or if there were already cops in the school. Probably the latter, because our schools today are more or less prisons. We didn't have cops roaming our schools 30 years ago. These days, most American schools seem to have their own police station.

If my childhood pals had the police called on them every time they fell asleep at school, you could have used it to fill a whole season of 'Cops'.

Now a 10-year-old has a criminal record because he fell asleep in class. Schools sure know how to give someone a start in life, huh?

(Source: http://www.theindychannel.com/education/21215165/detail.html)

School critics face censorship effort

With stories like this, I feel like I'm back in the days of the Internet's initial rise - when the policy of "free speech for me, not for thee" was more explicit than ever before.

A supporter or employee of a private school is demanding that Google yank a group because it criticizes the school. He says the group "has been purely devised as a way of striking back at the school for an expulsion decision."

Too.

Damn.

Bad.

Last I checked, nothing in the Constitution guarantees freedom from insult for schools. Yet this guy wants Google to exercise prior restraint over its groups feature?

It would be different if someone defamed an individual and Google wouldn't delete the post. Yet - without fail - those who support deleting a group criticizing a school are the same ones who defend attacking individuals as free speech.

Of course, if there was a group criticizing a school on Yahoo!, Yahoo! would probably just go ahead and delete the group - considering Yahoo!'s record of censorship.

I'm unfamiliar with the school in this story. But one thing is for sure: Censorship is one of the most virulent tools elites have to stockpile power and keep you down. Not just today, but throughout the history of communications.

Today, Internet gatekeepers support stifling criticism of private schools. In the early 20th century, Ohio banned pro-labor movies for the same reason: to keep elites in power. Surely, this pattern goes back to even the first time a book was banned.

From the party that brang us the New Economy...

Oh, brother.

Here's a headline in yesterday's New York Times:

"The G.O.P. Campaign Message in a Word: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs"

You read that right. The party that did far more than any other to foist upon us the failed New Economy, downsizing, outsourcing, and the worst recession in 75 years is running on JOB CREATION!

You can't make this up.

That's like if Mitt Romney ran on an animal rights platform.

Please, Republicans. Do run on job creation. If the Republicans really run on this, they won't just lose. They will lose amidst laughter from coast to coast.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/us/politics/05caucus.html)