DuVernois Blog

Gitmo birthday

A video game in which one goes around killing non-xtians

Army recruiting tool? Nope, commcercial game from the folks who brought you left behind and the turner diaries.

Mugabe to continue as president

Among his achievements are the lowest life expectancy in the world, the highest inflation, and 50%+ unemployment. In a country that used to be the "bread-basket" of Africa.

Using the faith healer con to get a private airplane

And not some little Piper Cub, but a multimillion dollar corporate jet. Yup, Jesus don't want his tax collector to fly coach.

Bush's choice to head the Family-Planning Post?

Yup, you guesses it, someone who opposes contraception. At least for white people.

Buy your Nazi SS t-shirt at Wal Mart

The totenkopf.

Another day, another hypocritical fundie Republican

Head of the National Association of Evangelicals, a man who frequently rants about the evil of gays and drug addicts, wait for, yep, regularly pays for gay sex and methamphetamines. Oh well, it's not as if his followers would have learned anything from previous examples.

Afghan women have gained little or nothing since the ouster of the Taleban

"No real change" for Afghan women.

Where does the Iraqi resistance get their weapons from?

The US weapon handouts! Our government has handed out 1/2 million weapons in Iraq without any accounting, recording of serial numbers, or anything! Hmmm...maybe the goal was chaos and enhancing the Iranian regime after all?

So here's just about the weirdest thing I've seen recently

Dubya's new ranch of 98,000 acres in Paraguay. Okay, here is where it gets weird. Is that his little hiding spot to avoid prosecution for war crimes? Of does the 2.2 mile long runway (look on google earth) mean he's moving full-time into the cocaine exporting racket? Weirder still is the connection with the Moonies and their purchase of land in the same area. Okay, and then the Jenna connection? Too strange for words.

DoJ investigations of Congresspeople

Some mix of scary and gross.

Family values (identify the scandal competition)

Religious institutions in the US...

...have long had special rights. No property taxes, non-profit status even when they build theme-parks, salons, and bookstores. They aren't subject to OSHA, state child protection, EEO, or EPA guidelines. Recent iterations of the federal government have funnelled more money to the churches (under the banners of "stop abuse of xtians" and "faith-based initiatives) and given them additional right beyond those of individuals, non-profits (that are non-religious), and corporations.

The New York Times is running a series of articles on these issues. The first two have appeared already.

• Religious institutions being exempted from regulations. The focus here is on child safety and property rights.
• Employee rights discussed here.

Why shouldn't churches pay property taxes? They receive fire protection, police protection, and are connected to city water, gas, and sewers where applicable. Here in Minneapolis, they run apartment buildings, a nightclub, and bookstores and repay nothing to their community. A sorry state of affairs.

Addedon October 10th: The third part of the story, with a focus on property taxes and tax breaks for those with religious affiliations.

Understanding the response to Foley's actions

"The Catholic Church shields pedophiles in its midst because it fears that the reputation of the Church as a whole would be damaged if it were generally known that there are any significant number of pedophile priests, because it doesn't want to raise questions about the wisdom of demanding that clerics (pretend to) be celibate, and because it's easy to forgive people who agree with you on the issues you think most important in life.

For parallel reasons, the Republican Party shields pedophiles in its midst: it fears that the reputation of the Party as a whole would be damaged if it became generally known and understood that Republicans are no more "moral" than any other politicians, it doesn't want to appear to be hypocritical on specific sexual issues of intense importance to its Bible-literalist base, and it finds it easy to forgive people who agree with its positions on the issues that are most important to its other members and its voters.

The tendency to forgive people who say what we want to hear usually extends into a belief that, after they are forgiven, they will somehow be inspired to stop engaging in the embarrassing and proscribed conduct that we have forgiven them for. So it probably was with the GOP leadership and Foley. But most evangelicals seem to know better: I remember seeing bumper stickers a few years back that said something like "I sin every day, but Jesus forgives me!" Maybe Foley should have one of those bumper stickers on his car, so that when GOP hypocrites condemn his behavior, he can remind them that he sins every day, but that Jesus forgives him every day so that he can go out with a fresh slate to sin again tomorrow in the exact same way."

Taken from this conversation on Plastic.

Torture also worse after Saddam Hussein

Yup, the US helps bring democracy, prosperity, and the rule of law.

What does second-hand cigarette smoke and global warming have it common?

Some of the same folks bankrolling the "scientific" opposition to them. What a strange world!

Papal infallibility

Unbelievably, genuine news sources are talking about papal infallibility and what his apology means. It's like a discussion of the true powers of Godzilla, or Zeus.

How about "no more illegal wars" and "no torture?"

Brazil in the news

Okay, we can't say the rain forests are regrowing, nor that they aren't being destroyed, but they are being destroyed less quickly than before! Still 17,000 square kilometers per year. Good thing we don't need that forest to stop global warming. Oh, we do?

Rio, city of sex? Perhaps if this City of Sex is built on the Copacabana. Sex pods, artwork, swinger clubs, the Roman Catholic Church. Yup it's all in there.

Junk science in the courtroom

Polygraphs, dental forensics, sloppy labwork.

The continuing struggle of science & education against theocrats & ignorance

Lawrence Krauss has a decent, albeit brief editorial in the New York Times after the Kansas School Board skewed back towards reality. I'm not sure in what forum his disagreement over "scientifically inappropriate attempts by some scientists to discredit the religious faith of others" appeared. Will have to take a look. Though I can see tactically why scientists might feel that, I think that it is hypocritical to argue for a reasoned, scientific approach in all matters other than other people's theology. The logical holes are there along with the incoherence of major religions, their ahistoricality, and their pernicious nature in practice (and perhaps in theory). I see little benefit in doing this, but little harm either. Deeply-held beliefs, whether sensible or not, are not likely to be changed by simple logic.

Just the other day, we see an evolving piece of the religious attack on reason and science. Due to a "clerical" (hmmm...that has two meanings...) error, evolutionary biology has disappeared from a federal list of university majors approved for federal student grants. Yup, follow the link and you can still (8/25/06) see the missing line, a blank line, for 26.1303. What a coincidence.

Woman fired for being female

After 54 years, this woman was fired because she's a woman and therefore can't teach men. And the man who fired her? A city councilman as well as church minister. The Taliban appears to be staging a comeback.

What not to do with firefighters

Call them for a non-existent tree fire, ask them to get a cat out of the tree, and then shoot at them when they say no.

And in Las Vegas...

you need to have money in order to be invited to a picnic. Yup, feeding the homeless in a park is illegal.

Iranian justice

Hanging a sixteen year old girl for "immorality."

Bad things

• I just happened to find the website of the Lebanese Company for the Reconstruction of Beirut's Central District. Lovely site.
• Take a look at the bizarre occupations you can get "Kiss me I'm a..." (and MANY other) t-shirts for. I want a "KISS ME , I'M AN ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER COMMUNITY LIAISON OFFICER" shirt. It's too weird.
• Take a look for their "I only sleep with Kuwaiti women" ones as well.
• Abortion counseling centers give false information to patients. These are the ones that got federal funding, so they should provide accurate information. Instead they parroted the right wing canards of "psychological trauma, increased breast cancer risk, and infertility."
• Let's all remember the first rule of the lebanon.

Power saw assault on the subway

Yowza! Someone was watching too many Texas Power-tool Massacre films.

First wild bear in Germany since 1835

So it was shot.

EU complicit in the CIA prisoner torture network

BBC

Retuers

"Turning the corner"

Or not exactly. Iraq is in worse shape than ever:

• Record numbers of murdered coming into the morgue.
• In addition to revenge murders of civilians by US soldiers, we have random artillery fire killing civilians.
• Fifty people kidnapped all at once. The disappeared almost always turn up as dead bodies.
• As the third deadline for naming ministers passes, the militias continue to pull people out of cars and kill them.
• See what a day in Iraq is like three years after the war began. Freedom? Democracy?
• See what's up on the economic front. Electrical power is near pre-war, embargo, levels. A lot of money has been spent (or wasted) with little gain.
• More on Haditha, location of the most public massacre of Iraqi civilians. It's not My Mai (Song My), but shows the same US military failures. Massacres of civilians in futile jestures of revenge.

Who would have guessed? Part 2.

Our Congress-slugs are bribeable with free travel.

Gonzales on the 1st Ammendment

When "national security" is envoked, our chief law enforcement officer believes that the 1st Ammendment doesn't apply. A pretty shocking statement that journalists could be tried for publishing evidence of federal crimes.

Read about the NSA spying aided by AT&T on Wired magazine.

Bush challenges to the rule of law

Bush has claimed that he is above more than 750 laws. That they do not apply to him. ''There is no question that this administration has been involved in a very carefully thought-out, systematic process of expanding presidential power at the expense of the other branches of government," Cooper [Phillip Cooper, a Portland State University law professor who has studied the executive power claims Bush made during his first term] said. ''This is really big, very expansive, and very significant."

And more than 3500 Americans were illegally spied on last year by the FBI following the contention of Bush that domestic spying laws could be completely ignored. I really think his best chance in the long term is to resign and let Cheney give him a pardon. Unless Cheney is forced to resign first...

Darfur & Biafra

Been thinking about the big rally being held this Sunday, April 30th at the State Capital. "What did you do to try to stop the Darfur Genocide?" Been thinking about Biafra in light of what is happening now (and heck, for years now) in the Sudan. Got a book on the Biafran War a few days ago. Hadn't thought about it in quite some time. Anyway...there's not a lot of good material (at least that I could find quickly) on Biafra online, but you can try these to start:

• Wikipedia if you didn't remember where Biafra was.
• eXile web magazine's offbeat homage to Carl Gustaf von Rosen---hero of Biafra and general aviation saint of Africa.
• Frederick Forsyth got his start as a journalist in Biafra. His book remains the classic telling of the story.
• The Nation of Biafra, in exile.

Another take on Darfur, from two years ago.

Build your own Iraqi police/death squad

It's pretty cheap, and the cool mullahs are doing it. Guns, uniforms, bulletproofed cars. All available for cash transactions.

Standing room only airlines

As seat pitches decline again on many airlines, my 6' 6" body is bound to face more abuse from the airlines. But standing on flights?

Nails in the head

Who would have guessed that a suicide attempt using a dozen nails from a nail gun would be unsuccessful? We did know that it would make for a good medical article and some odd news online.

Life (as a sex slave) in the new Iraq

Even Time magazine can find the horror stories of post-"Mission Accomplished" Iraq.

Ignorance (of the law) is a valid excuse now?

A woman badly hurt her child shaking it in order to banish "evil spirits" from it.

$400 Million retirement package for Exxon executive

Well, at least those high oil and gas prices sent the money to someone who can truly use it. Both Lee Raymond and the Saudis thank you. Heck, the Iranian mullahs thank you also.

Own up to a drug conviction and no student aid for you!

I guess the department was right. It is an argument for drug legalization. 190,000 students have told the truth and been denied financial aid.

Lied to again by the felon-in-chief

Two days after the secret intelligence team reported to the White House that those nasty Iraqi trailers had nothing to do with bioweaponry, Dubya announced "We have found the weapons of mass destruction." It was not only incorrect, it was a bald-faced lie, known at that point to be incorrect. The lies that got the US into the war continued in (mostly failed) attempts at justifying the growing debacle.

DIY Lasik???

Yup, Lasik at Home. Sign me right up to sculpt my cornea from the comfort of my living room couch.

Scott McClellan

Scott McClellan fully and truly skewered in Vanity Fair. "Press Secretary Scott McClellan's mangled sentences, flat-footed evasions, and genial befuddlement have made him the butt of a thousand blogs, as well as of an increasingly savage press corps."

"Every day, he's pulped, pummeled, spit upon for speaking White House untruths—or for not speaking them well enough.

It is so bad, and so constantly public—every misspoken word, every stutter, every repetition, repeated mercilessly across the information universe—that he can only hope that it's gotten bad enough for him to get a sympathy vote."

Wow!

DeLay's excuse?

A vast anti-Christian conspiracy. Huh?

The Taliban college experience in Pensacola

An unaccredited college for the looniest of the loons. Get expelled for "making eye babies!" That is, looking at a member of the opposite sex.

Dubya presidential library may be built on land swindled from the elderly

How appropriate would that be?

On a typical day we'd condemn genocide, unless you want to advertise

Oi! It's a long, sad tale of how the New York Times printed an eight page advertising supplement which cites the virtues of the Sudan and the Sudanese government. The same government which works overtime to slaughter non-Muslems in the south of the country. Plastic lays out the story, and some of the comments clarify how advertising supplements are sold. It's weird that US Christian religious leaders are perpetually up in arms about the "oppression of Christians" in Wyoming, but not the genocide of Christians in the Sudan. Ooops! Wait a second, those Christians in Wyoming are white, right?

Further consequences of the Patriot Act

You need to report to the government if you take your chicken to the vet. Huh? This is smaller, less intrusive government? And it's weird!

Child "bride" in Afghanistan

One of the more painful stories that I have ever read. Married off at age four, beaten, starved, scalded, abused for years. Finally escaped.

Bush claims that Iraq is not in civil war

As the civil war claims 50-60 lives each day. In the US history analogy, this is worse than the (Bloody) Kansas salvary fight, but nowhere near as bad as our Civil War (3000 deaths per day on average) and only some fraction of the Revolutionary War (~100 per day) totals. Looking around the world, the Congo sees a shocking 2500 deaths per day. Still, this one is our fault and what to do in the Congo???

Note also buried in the story is news of another coverup of US military killings of civilians.

Outsourcing to North Korea?

Ick! South Korean firms are moving some manufacturing across the DMZ to employ North Korean workers who officially get 1/10th to 1/20th the salary of South Koreans, but the money goes to the North Korean government, not the workers. And the factory owners want to have the products labeled as made in South Korea.

Welcome to the brain of the Don

The Donald Rumsfeld that is. Plastic has an excellent resume of web links from his halcyon days in the Nixon and Ford administrations to leading two failed wars (see what sort of freedom and democracy has brought to Afghanistan?) for Dubya.

Read his own words, justifying what has been accomplished in the past three years in Iraq. Believe any of it? Like Rummy's $50 billion dollar and 5 week estimates of the war costs and length? And what's up with his comparisons of very and sundries with Hitler? Do we really fear that a 1000 year Venezualan Reich is right around the corner? Or is he projecting a bit?

Going back to the resume, we have to reflect on his successful running of the Office of Economic Opportunity under Nixon and his back-room efforts to help get the US out of the Vietnam War. For that he was shuffled off to be NATO ambassador. Then triumph as chief of staff and defense secretary under Ford, fighting against the whole nastiness of detante. Off to the private sector until Dubya decides to bring the Nixon crowd all back to the White House. The epic Shinseki-Rumsfeld fight seems now to be a footnote in the story, but certainly marked part of the White House team's decent into unreality.

Afghanistan. Iraq. Some investigations into what Rumsfeld has wrought.

The debt

Well, it now stands at about $27,000 for each person in the country. Or about 65.7% of the GDP. Over $8 trillion. What's going to happen when the Baby Boomers retire? It's rather a mess that those spend and borrow (not tax) Republicans have gotten us into financially.

Iraqi rights abuses increasing

According to the US State Department, which ignored abuses in Guantanamo, and of prisoners of the US authorities in Iraq and Afghanistan. The report does say that the United State's "own journey toward liberty and justice for all has been long and difficult, and it is far from complete." And getting farther.

And now with the US running the show, they even have a death penalty though it was intended mostly for a certain former president of theirs.

Wal-Mart bloggers

Wal-Mart press releases and other PR/propaganda are being distributed via blogs. So, blog for Wal-Mart. Hmmm...does it pay well? Hey, I could write positive comments about how Wal-Mart helps out state economies by forcing its workers onto public assistance. Or how it improves the trade deficit with China. Or how much electricity is consumed to make the cheap injection-molded plastic crap. Or how much CO2 is emitted in generating that electricity. Or...

Blogging for CENTCOM?

So, the US military hires people to look at blogs, add entries that try to lead people to official propaganda, and "engage" those that post information that does not agree with the propaganda line. Okay, Goebbels would have approved of those efforts, but they're just beginning efforts, aren't they? Eventually "incorrect" information could be replaced. That would just be a little hacking. And the "incorrect" information provider could be "removed." After all, they hate the freedoms that we used to have.

A $7 Billion "word processing error"

That, heh heh, happened to benefit the il companies to the tune of $7 Billion of taxpayer money. Nope, has to be just an accident.

Bill of Rights

Wow! 20% of surveyed Americans thought pet ownership was enshrined in the 1st Ammendment. Only one of the one thousand respondants could name all five liberties listed there. No wonder we're losing them.

• Freedom of/from religion
• Freedom of the press
• Freedom of speech
• Freedom of assembly
• Right to court process

Let's see...yup, all of them are under concerted attack.

Today's Iraq update

There are no, as in zero, nip, nada, Iraqi battalions are ready to do anything without US support.

Wait a seond! There is something they can do! They can act as death squads and kill up to 900 people per month (July figure). Bodies found with cigarette burns, and mutilated with power tools. These guys went to a cruder torture school than the US torturers. Maybe to the School of the Americas?

Want a different perspective? You can read the defense department's "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq" for lots of statistics. No comments in there about the near civil war situation, the death squads, or the growing power of the mullahs.

Remember the Freedom Tower? 1776 feet of pure freedom in lower Manhattan. Well, you may have to submit to iris scans and thumbprints. Additionally, the building seems to exempt from inspections. So, freedom means no privacy and being above the law?

And selling body parts?

Yuck!

Bikers drown out fundamentalist protesters at military funerals

So, these fundamentalist Christians from Westboro Baptist Church are going to the funerals of American victims of the Iraq War to harass the mourners. Why, you ask? Because the deaths are God's punishment on America for "tolerating" homosexuality. Huh? Okay, stay with me now, so bikers come out and run their engines and show their support for the victims and their families by drowning out the offensive Baptists. Got it? Yeah, it's weird. Read all about it in the Army Times this week.

In secret, previously declassified documents are being reclassified

It's a pretty bizarre back-attack on Bill Clinton's 1995 declassification order. That was supposed to speed the declassification of materials that had no need to remain secret.

Documents that have been reclassified range from bizarre to embarassing:

• "The CIA's assessment on 12 October 1950 that Chinese intervention in the Korean War was 'not probable in 1950' - two weeks before Chinese troops crossed into Korea."
• "A 1962 telegram from the then US ambassador to Yugoslavia containing an English translation of a Belgrade newspaper article on China's nuclear weapons program."
• "A 1948 memorandum on a CIA scheme to float balloons over countries behind the Iron Curtain to drop propaganda leaflets."

If you made a copy of them while they were public, you may now be in violation of the Espionage Act. Heck, pretty soon owning a copy of the Constitution is likely to be illegal, so a coverup of CIA misdeeds of 60 years ago may be the least of our troubles.

UN asks for Gitmo to be closed

Due to torture, inhuman operating conditions, and an abusive use of power. You can read the report here. And see the news articles here (Yahoo News).

The US regime refuses to consider this. And claims that the torture and abuse is, in fact, humane. And that the torture center houses "dangerous terrorists." Well, if so, they could be charged with crimes and their cases put before a judge and jury.

Looking further at who is actually in detention at Guantanamo Bay reveals an interesting story. Most of these people were Arabs arrested in Pakistan (for reward monies) and are not accused of hostilities toward the US. Though after four years of torture and confinement, it's hard to not imagine them wanting some payback now. Only eight of 132 studied are even accused of planning or being involved with potential terrorist attacks outside of Afghanistan. Many are just accused by one other person of having some association with the Taliban.

"If you think of the people down there, these are people, all of whom were captured on a battlefield. They're terrorists, trainers, bomb makers, recruiters, financiers, [Osama bin Laden's] bodyguards, would-be suicide bombers, probably the 20th 9/11 hijacker." -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld lying on June 27, 2005

Look at prisoner #032 for a case study. Someone who is not one of the "most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth" as Rummy put it, and is neither an enemy nor a combatant.

The "important" prisoners disappeared into CIA custody, and are not in Cuba. They've been ferried in and out of various torture centers in Eastern Europe and the Middle East instead.

And the government plans the biggest ever giveaway to the oil and gas industries

Remember, these are the folks with record profits, right? The companies that Americans and Iraqis are dying to support financially. Yup, give 'em another $7 billion. Besides, Bush was planning on making that up by cutting worthless social programs, right? What's more imortant to the stockholders of Exxon, I mean, the country, than increasing oil and gas company profits by another few billion? Nothing could be more important, right? I mean, what are you, a terrorist? Why do you hate this country?

Gitmo does torture

The UN has concluded that US activities at Guantanamo Bay do constitute torture and do violate international laws. Not that anyone is really surprised.

Would I make fun of Dick Cheney when he shot a lawyer?

Yes, I will!

It has become clear that Dick's five deferments from being sent to Vietnam ("I had other priorities") were well served. The additional "friendly fire" would have eventually eaten into US military moral.

A more sober, and more boring, take on the story is at the New York Times. We do learn that Dick used a 28 gauge shotgun, but we remain woefully ignorant of the shot size. 7.5 or 8? Or was he going for distant shots with #6 shot?

Another Chinese writer convicted and sentenced to prison based on Yahoo intelligence info

Just complying with the law. Just following orders.

The "budget"

The Dubya proposed Federal budget for FY 2007 was released (man, it's painful digging through it!). Pentagon gets big increases (remember Iraq isn't in the budget, it's in additional spending bills to hide the truth of the $2 trillion that we'll send there), Veterans Affairs, State, and Homeland Security get a little more. Everything else is cut. The resulting deficit? $423 billion. Wow!

"The biggest winners in the budget blowout would be: the Defense Department ($440 billion - having grown 45% over the last five years); the State Department ($33.9 billion - a 12% increase of $3.7 billion over FY 2006); and the VA ($35.7 billion - an increase of $2.6 billion over last year)." Gotta pay for those wounded. Cuts and budgets are broken down here at the Washington Post.

So, basically we'll borrow 1/2 a trillion dollars from the Saudis and the Chinese, send the money to the military-industrial complex (note the DoD budget is equal to the deficit), use the proceeds to cut the taxes of the rich and the super-rich, and leave future generations to pay the bills. Makes sense to me.

Take the Google China test for yourself

Google images for Tiananmen.

Google CHINA images for Tiananmen.

Gay rights in Cameroon

"Gays are among us" newspaper headlines...

Muhammad, cartoons, and cultural differences

Five people die in Afghanistan because of vague news stories about blasphemy in newspapers half a world away. The question, I think, is whether we believe in freedom, such as freedom of the press, and freedom from religion as much as the violent mobs believe in, well, violence. It seems terribly ironic to burn down buildings, murder and kidnap people, and blow up their cities to protest your depiction as a fanatic and a bomber. I want the right to be offended. I want the right to offend. Were those cartoons a low-brow offense? Sure, but remember why they were printed in the first place! Their right to exist, and the death threats against the artist, prior to publication, made the papers interested in printing them. Since Satanic Verses this threat against western art and artists has been growing. We can look at the murders in the Netherlands. Terroristic threats and burnt cars and buildings in France.

The response to the Egyptian ferry sinking might be noted also, though I would strongly hesitate to link it to my arguments above. It seems as though a corrupt Egyptian state is not trusted with the response to this disaster. Going back to the General Slocum, we would have to ask whether New York City at the turn of the 20th century was any more capable of dealing with boat owners...

Business as usual

The Pope says that the duty of the church is to influence our leaders and the Supreme Court looks to be changing a bit. There was also some bit in there about eros and agape but the Bishop of Rome talking about Greek philosophy is a little too serious for this blog I fear.

The outsourcing of torture

European governments knew about the CIA's torture flights. These were criminal acts violating European human rights laws. Consequences to be determined later... EU governments have been reluctant to release information to the investigator.

The punishment for torturing an Iraqi to death?

A $6000 fine. I can't even keep track of the things that have pissed me off (politically) today. But this one got me to log back in, and fire this off to the cosmos.

It might not be a crime now to mention the Armenian Genocide in Turkey

Though the charges were just dropped and there was no real judgement as to whether it was a one-time deal or a new stance. What was shocking to me was the lack of support that Pamuk faced within Turkey.

MLK's incomplete legacy

Greenwich, CT beaches.

A real need for education

...on alternative energy. Looks to be some odd versions of NIMBYs. Windmills make the sound of Nazis torturing Jews? Huh?

Back to the J. Edgar Hoover era

As it appears that nearly every US "security" agency has been involved with spying on Americans. Activist groups targetted included environmental groups, animal cruelty (prevention) groups, Greenpeace... It sort of makes sense since we know that Greenpeace was involved with the OKC bombing, and PETA funding the WTC attacks. No wait, someone else was involved in those...

Your freedoms have left the building

No Geneva Convention. No ban on domestic spying.

Air marshals

Now that they have been shown to be able to kill a defenseless bipolar man with impunity by claiming that he said he had a bomb (something no other witnesses heard), they get to tangle with other forms of transit. Mission accomplished on the airlines. Off to trains and buses!

The Bush regime still has trouble telling lobbyists from journalists

As a Oil Industry shill goes to the Climate Change conference as a journalist. Credentialed by the Washington Times.

Diebold, black box voting, and the US vote fraud

Diebold has a problem with North Carolina wanting to see the election machine code.

Discussion is at Slashdot.

Please do visit, and try to support, those who are attempting to retake the voting machine black box back from some decidedly shady corporate characters and return it to the people.

Note who these Diebold folks are!

The real reason Bush wanted to bomb Al Jazeera

Horribly blatent age discrimination! Dubya stands by people of age.

On an airliner, don't step outside to take a smoke

Now the little speech before taking off will have to be ammended.

More on the secret CIA flights

Spain is now investigating the CIA torture flights which landed in Spain. The stories leak out in the end, don't they? We're gradually figuring out the Plame case, the Iraq War deception, and the US-run international torture circuit. It's been a pretty shameful five years. How many decades will it take to restore some modicum of faith in the US?

How sick do you have to be to escape the pentagon's call up of reservists?

• If you're a woman who was four months into chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer?
• If you are diabetic and require an insulin pump?
• If it's been two weeks since you receiving a kidney transplant?
• If you require kidney dialysis?
• If you are suffering from bipolar disorder?
• If you suffer from sleep and need medical equipment to help you breath, yet large portions of Iraq and Afghanistan lack the electricity necessary to run the equipment, do you get called up?

Wired's take on the worst software bugs in history

Windows isn't mentioned at all!

Guns and laws.

The Gun Industry is the only industry with lawsuit immunity? What a strange path from the 2nd ammendment.

Making the Patriot Act permanent

Now in conference committee. Wait, you haven't been hearing about it on the news? What a surprise!

Man bitten by dog

Man is author of anti-dangerous dog bill which allows felony charges to be filed for owners of potentially dangerous dogs. It was his own dog.

Canadian extradition scheme

Send them back to the States by dragging them out of a hospital and driving them to the border with a catheter still attached. Ouch!

Russian admiral named patron saint of nuclear bombers

In further evidence that religious leaders are insane. Saint some admiral from the Russo-Turk wars of the late 1700s? And then make him in charge of nuclear bombers? Wasn't the whole Christianity thing supposed to be about loving fellow humans? Or something like that?

Project Censored

Always one of the most important links of the year. The end of open government, the civilian deaths in Iraq, the Diebolding of the election, 1984 cameras, and the purpose of "Homeland Security." Makes you feel proud to be an American.

Cosmetics made from executed Chinese prisoners?!?

It would make a great horror film. Trouble is, it's real instead.

Dubya requests a piss break

Click on it and see it at Yahoo News. Not photoshop, bizarrely enough.

Who agrees with FEMA's recovery efforts?

Not Colin Powells.

People on dry land wonder why they should leave.

Brown is now taken off duty. Guess he was transferring too much political heat to the Dubya.

Search and rescue efforts have formally ended. The body count might be lower than feared.

The second ammendment has been repealed in New Orleans. Except for the wealthy and their private security teams.

And as part of the continuing crisis, the Freedom March isn't free. Everyone marchingf must register to attend, the route and the Washington Mall will be fenced off to keep the "other" away, there will be a huge law enforcement overwatch, and thosenot registered will be arrested.

Remember, your chemotherapy or radiation treatment is less important than a Presidential photo-op

Read all about it. And in the end, he didn't even do the photo shoot!

New Orleans ongoing...

Tragedies and utter incompetence still prevail. I meant in NOLA, rather than DC, the latter is obvious.

Bush, as successful in New Orleans as in Falluja.

"Colossal failure..."

Paralysis of the Bush regime.

"W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. 'I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees,' he told Diane Sawyer."

US efforts met sub-Bangladeshi standards.

"Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. 'The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all.'"

Pat Robertson's foreign policy

Or more reasons why no one in the world trusts the US. How long will it be before crypto-fascist theologists make official US foreign policy?

Interesting items to note in the article:

• Venezuela is encouraging Muslim extremism?


• Isn't Pat's calling for a nuclear attack on the State Department, which is a part of the US, a call for terrorism?


• And hasn't that been enough to detain him without trial for over two years?


• Pat does cut to the chase, murdering Chavez according to Pat "...don't think any oil shipments will stop."

Iraq fraud

$1 Billion of arms and defense fraud. Out of a $1.3B budget?

Understanding SUVs and the Iraq War

I'll let the article speak for itself...

"Masculine overcompensation is the idea that men who are insecure about their masculinity will behave in an extremely masculine way as compensation. I wanted to test this idea and also explore whether overcompensation could help explain some attitudes like support for war and animosity to homosexuals," Willer said. [...] Masculinity-threatened participants also showed more interest in buying an SUV. "There were no increases for other types of cars," Willer said.

Fumbling Bumbling Idiots?

Join the discussion at plastic.com of how the FBI spends its money investigating the ACLU and Greenpeace, and has declared animal rights activists to be the greatest threat to America.

BTW Do you recognize that face? It's a wanted terrorist. I'm guessing that it's going to be difficult to id anyone with that photo. I was disappointed this morning to find that the post office did not have wanted posters up. You can get them online though.

The SCOTUS fight

Well, I'll do my best to not talk of it much. The Nation makes the 5-4 O'Connor votes and the horrible past (pre-FDR) of the court plain. Someone slap me if I post more on the Supremes.

If you weren't sure that Halliburton was just a scheme to move federal money into private hands...

Double-billing, massive cost inflation, pulling the shrapnel and bullets out of food, ghost employees... They do it all.

Speech word count

Iraq/Iraqis: 91
Terror/Terrorists: 33
America/Americans: 19
war: 10
Cynical mentions of September 11th: 5
lose/losing: 4
Afghanistan: 2
bin Laden: 2
win/winning: 0

The disconnect

Rumsfeld says that the US is winning in Iraq.

The UN says that the US is blocking human rights investigations at Gitmo.

Meanwhile, bombings across Baghdad, rebuilding efforts have failed, looting continues, politicians are assasinated, and Iraq is the training ground for a new generation of international terrorists. Oh yeah, and they continue to try to take away our freedoms at home.

Let's do the math...

Norm Coleman gets $45,000+ in campaign contributions. The citizens of St. Paul lose $50M. And the contributor nets $30M. Looks like politics as usual. The taxpayers send their money to multimillionaires who own the politicos. It's a beautiful little self-contained scam repeated many times.

Meanwhile, publically-funded "town-hall" meetings are open only to political supporters of the Dubya and the House thinks the biggest issue is protecting the physical flag of the US. Yup, New Zealand is looking better all of the time.

100% complication rate?

That's not good for a doctor. The ongoing tale of Dr. Jayant Patel---87 deaths in Australia after being removed from medicine in Oregon and New York states, with an unknown death toll there.

Nun torured and crucified for being "possessed"

Or more likely, suffering from mental illness.

Who builds the new gulag additions in Gitmo?

Halliburton does!

The pro-lynching senators

Here are the Senators who have refused to take part in this historic apology:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
(202) 224-4944 | Write

Thad Cochran (R-MS)
(202) 224-5054 | Write

John Cornyn (R-TX)
(202) 224-2934 | Write

Michael Enzi (R-WY)
(202) 224-3424 | Write

Judd Gregg (R-NH)
(202) 224-3324 | Write

Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
(202) 224-5251 | Write

Trent Lott (R-MS)
(202) 224-6253 | Write

John Sununu (R-NH)
(202) 224-2841 | Write

Craig Thomas (R-WY)
(202) 224-6441 | Write

Though this is an evolving list...

Mugabe's big party

While his loyal subjects are starving. A million dollar 10th anniversary party preceeded by a trip to "a friendly Middle Eastern country," likely Libya. We'll see if Mandela attends.

Zimbabwe general strike...

...doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything. The authorities have announced that they will "deal ruthlessly" with any street protests. Oddly enough, the state-controlled media didn't report on the general strike. Funny that.

The Beeb has the best coverage that I know of. Click on the link above and follow links there to quite a bit more coverage, including video and some photos. Including the one to the right.

A cobbler from Harare, and many web visitors, comment on the news.

Stanford Prison Experiement

I was chatting with some colleagues about the Iraq (and Gitmo and Afghanistan...) prison problems and found that they didn't know about the Stanford Prison Experiment and how it might connect with the current problems.

The continuing crisis

The tobacco industry clearly has a friend in the Justice Department... Gay and lesbian veterans don't have friends in Texas's capital. And biologists must hate freedom, they can make gay flies. And now, for right-wing hate-mongers, your own phone company.

Disease of the day

Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome. As my friend Keith points out, it's weird that an inability to process certain amino acids makes you want to eat yourself...

The ongoing farce's recent bodycount

The slavery theme

Millions are still in slavery around the world. And it looks as though the profit in trafficked people still is made in Europe and the States. $31B annually!

At least someone else is doing the torturing for us...

In Iraq, the new police are carrying on the human rights abuses. With rolemodels like ours, who is to blame them?

How do we know Putin is a good man?

"I looked the man in the eye," Bush said after their first summit, in June 2001. "I was able to get a sense of his soul — a man deeply committed to his country."

Glad that our dear leader is psychic.

Quote of the day

"During a nuclear incident, it is important to avoid radioactive material, if possible." -- Dept. of Homeland Security

Darwin award winner?

Albania's most wanted man. He's eluded capture for years, dodged the special police sent after him, and launched attacks on police stations. He died while fishing with dynamite. The fuse was evidently too short. Ooops!

Two NYT articles on grim situations

The last surviving single, older male residents upstairs from a trendy NYC bar and gallery. Watching their old neighborhood turn into Yuppiedom.

Honoring the dead pope, while ignoring the deaths in Darfur? Genocide. I could have sworn that the rallying cry was never again. Cambodia? East Timor? Bosnia? Rwanda? Sudan?

Hip Hop Hamburger

McDonald's will pay you $1-$5 per radio play for a Hip Hop song that features their "food." Obviously they will have artistic control of the reference, so no dice with "Big Mac(tm) gonna gun you down\Heart attack zone under the Scot."

Ick, ick, ick!

Dead man found. After ten years. At home.

Agricultural gadget of the year

Ouch! No chicken run here.

Iraq lunacy

Freed hostage shot by US troops. Brilliant move.

Contractor cash-ins.

Uday may have been planning a coup in the hours leading up to the initial US attack. An interesting story. Not sure where to go with it. It doesn't seem to have caught much larger press attention.