Happy Halloween Open Thread

You have to see today's Boondocks. It's a Halloween Nightmare.
Bush/Cheney get The Mindless Zombie vote. scary

New Voters in NY: success story

The last day to sign up to vote was October 9th. My son mailed his registration form on October 9th and we kept our fingers crossed. Since then my son has received 2 voter cards with the complete instructions on where to go on election day. He also received a big color postcard from our county executive with a picture of what the polling machines look like and a welcome letter that says, "Congratulations on registering to vote. " Now, The Power Of This Machine Is In Your Hands.

There was no nasty or intimidating mail sent to any of us. I'm pretty impressed with the (police) State of NY when it comes to voting. When they say NY's a democratic state, it means it's a democratic state.

It's going to be fun to be there when my son votes for the first time. Should I bring the camera or is that too tacky? He missed voting last year because his 18th birthday was just a few days later. He usually accompanied me when I voted over the years because they have a bake sale at the school where we vote. He was raised to understand the importance of being involved in elections and buying cookies to support the local school.

A Public Service Message

Keep republicans you care about away from the polls on Tuesday if you live in a swing state or where the race is close. Keep them in bed all day long if you have to. It's for the cause. It's for their own good and the good of the country. Maybe you'll get a thank you. Maybe not. Do whatever it takes, baby. Make sure you have someone fill in while you go and vote democrat across the board.

Defeat fascism in America.
Re-defeat Bush.

BTW
Yale endorsed Kerry

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

Do you want to help get the job done? You can! Check out VoterCall
From their website:

"The election on November 2nd may be the most important of our lives, but millions of people, including many of those most affected by unjust government policies, will not show up to vote on election day. VoterCall provides a simple way for individuals anywhere to make a huge difference - placing brief phone calls to encourage low-income, minority and young voters to go vote.

The set up is simple and easy to use. You can call from anywhere you have a phone and access to the web. You can call as many, or as few people as you like - there's no minimum or maximum commitment required. This site will guide you every step of the way, technical support is also available by email."

******
Clock watch
Don't forget to set your clocks back one hour before you hit the sheets tonight. No, you can't set it back four years, even as much as you might want to.
******

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to understand how the showing of the new ObL tape yesterday is going to help bush. Seeing that the man who planned and executed the attacks of 9-11 is still standing and talking makes us feel safer? How does that work exactly?

What is more scary?

Halloween or Election Day?

*******
PS. did you see the scariest halloween costumes of 2004?

Osama

He's baaaaaack. Osama looks like he is in pretty good condition. Bush fucked up. Fire him.

Your Mental Images of the Last Four Years

by pissed off patricia

When you think back about these past four years of the bush administration, what are the first three images that come to mind? Close you eyes a second. What do you see?

Okay, now what are the three things for which you believe this administration will best be remembered?

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

The Numbers (game?)

Think about the numbers. Numbing numbers they are too. Estimates are out that about 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed as a result of bush's desire to invade Iraq. Even if the total is half that amount, it is still staggering. Today it was announced that 1,111 soldiers have died in Iraq. We have over 8,000 wounded soldiers. The cost of this war is escalating to over 200 billion American dollars. Then there's the nearly 350 tons of explosives missing from Iraq.

The polls show that the percentage numbers for Senator Kerry and bush bounce around in every state just about every day. Sometimes it's a 50/50 split and sometimes one or the other has the lead but within the 3, 4, or 5 percent margin of error. The numbers vary.

We can move on and count the number of Americans who are jobless, insurance-less, homeless, and less a lot more of the things that they had four years ago. More staggering numbers there too.

It's all there in the numbers. What would we do without them? What about the gazillions of dollars we are paying to Halliburton? What about the those numbers? More and more numbers are flashed in our face every day. At the Kerry rallies they are holding up signs each day and those signs show the number of days until the election.

Oh shoot, let's not forget about the numbers we'll hear election night. Damn, that will be number-arama won't it? We'll hear about numbers in every state and we'll hear a lot about time, which is also composed of numbers. You can't talk about the electoral college without numbers. Numbers will be shooting out of our TV's with astonishing speed. We'll all be watching those numbers roll across the screen. How many numbers do you think we'll see and hear? I'm guessing the total will be innumerable.

Yes indeed, it's all about the numbers. It's about 9-11 and it's about nearly 3,000 people being killed that awful day. It's about these numbers verses those numbers. Sometimes the numbers are good and sometimes they can weigh you down. Tuesday night we'll want our candidate to have high numbers and we'll want his opponent to have low numbers. We'll want the voters to turn out in high numbers and we'll want the number of Americans who didn't vote to be low. We'll want an honest count of the votes too. We'll be depending on the numbers because it's all about the numbers.

Sometimes you have to wonder. If we didn't have the numbers, would anything count?

From my local paper

I forgot to post this excerpt yesterday:
This Bush problem stems from cells
By Jimmy Breslin

...And of her stem cells, Kathy Kenny announced, "Anybody with half a brain knows this is the future."

She meant that the one without half a brain is George Bush. Somewhere out there on Tuesday night, and then last night and as he will be on all the nights left before this election, George Bush was in his shirtsleeves to look like a working man and he flailed and whined and lied and lied. They are missing 400 tons of major explosives? What 400 tons? He is an embarrassment to the country. He cried out against stem cells because he said they are sinful. You are taking a life to perhaps save a life, he says. He sees armies of women having babies and then chopping them up like chickens for the stem cells. He is opposed to embryonic stem cells, which come from a fetus that has been fertilized in vitro. His wife says the stem cells couldn't save her father from Alzheimer's, which means nobody should have them. They get their views from a Dust-Bowl Bible left by Elmer Gantry. Fifty years from now, people will look back on this year in America and be amazed that the country was run by an obvious nitwit.

My friend and handyman who is helping me create my Tiki computer room told me that his brother and wife had their baby's placenta donated to a registry just after he was born. For stem cells! So who exactly is dying for stem cells?

another lie

I don't know how anyone can possibly trust this man. This was the guy who lied about the pretzel, his fall off a bike.

Salon.com: NASA photo analyst: Bush wore a device during debate
Physicist says imaging techniques prove the president's bulge was not caused by wrinkled clothing. By Kevin Berger

Oct. 29, 2004 | George W. Bush tried to laugh off the bulge. "I don't know what that is," he said on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday, referring to the infamous protrusion beneath his jacket during the presidential debates. "I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt."

....Dr. Robert M. Nelson, however, was not laughing. He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He's a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis. Currently he's engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn's moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons.

A professional physicist and photo analyst for more than 30 years, he speaks earnestly and thoughtfully about his subject. "I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate," he says. "This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt."

More on 9/11 Coverup

Supposedly 3 of the 4 black boxes were found from 9/11. Why do you suppose the contents haven't been revealed? Why are officials still saying that they were never found? "But New York City Firefighter Nicholas DeMasi has written in a book self-published by Ground Zero workers that he took federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and located three of the four. His account is backed by a well-known Ground Zero volunteer."

Wow you can watch Fahrenheit 9/11 on the internet in low res! Tell everyone.

Yay, Spitzer comes through again: "On behalf of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Chief Investigator William Casey today accepted a Complaint and Petition from a group of New York City citizens including 9/11 family members, survivors and a Ground Zero triage physician. The Complaint demands that the AG open a criminal inquiry and/or grand jury investigation into the many still unsolved crimes of September 11, 2001 over which he has jurisdiction." I have to write him another thank you note. He is very kind and actually answers my thank you notes.

Fighting over the 9/11 commission bill in the news:

"House and Senate conferees will battle behind closed doors this week trying at least to reach an agreement among themselves before Election Day. The key issue - whether to adhere to the 9/11 commission recommendations and give full budget authority to a new intelligence director or abide by the Pentagon's desire to leave spending in the Defense secretary's control - has reached a virtual deadlock thus far.

...Vice presidential candidate John Edwards released a statement yesterday lambasting President George W. Bush for not forcing the legislation through.

"The fact that President Bush hasn't gotten this done three years after 9/11 and nearly 100 days after the Commission's report is a colossal failure of leadership," Edwards said.

Use BugMeNot.com to get user names and passwords for some articles.

Well we showed 'em... or maybe not

The NY Times reports that a conservative estimate of dead Iraqi civilians since the US invasion is at 100,000: "In 15 of the 33 communities visited, residents reported violent deaths in their families since the conflict started. They attributed many of those deaths to attacks by American-led forces, mostly airstrikes, and most of those killed were women and children. The risk of violent death was 58 times higher than before the war, the researchers reported."

And a UN Report says that the U.S. has no justification for using torture. You mean torture isn't a college prank or a family value?: ""The absolute nature of the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill treatment means that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture," the report said." Bush was so proud during the debates that he didn't sign up for the ICC. I hope that he is charged for war crimes.

Or did we show them? This was on CNN last night with Aaron Brown. (you can try to watch it here)

BROWN: Let me ask you then, David, the question I asked Jamie. In regard to the dispute about whether that stuff was there when the Americans arrived, is it game, set, match? Is that part of the argument now over? KAY: Well, at least with regard to this one bunker and the film shows one seal, one bunker, one group of soldiers going through and there were others there that were sealed, with this one, I think it is game, set and match. There was HMX, RDX in there. The seal was broken and quite frankly to me the most frightening thing is not only is the seal broken and the lock broken but the soldiers left after opening it up. I mean to rephrase the so-called (UNINTELLIGIBLE) rule if you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security.

Does this mean that the Preznit will quit saying that Kerry doesn't have the facts about the missing 380 tons of dangerous explosives in Iraq. Perhaps Kerry did have the facts and bush didn't. bush: "This week Senator Kerry is again attacking the actions of our military in Iraq, with complete disregard for the facts."

You can see pictures here of the explosives. "....members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS news crew bunker after bunker of material labelled "explosives." Usually it took just the snap of a bolt cutter to get into the bunkers and see the material identified by the 101st as detonation cords. "

Wow, 150 digital cameras were given to Iraqi's to show who they are. It was made into a movie. Boy, they'll show us.

Oh sure, the NAACP's tax exempt status is being investigated by the IRS for endorsing the preznit. Et tu, IRS? Is there anything that isn't political or racially motivated? What about the churches? Investigate the churches.

Use BugMeNot.com to get user names and passwords for some articles.

bushmanipulations on memory lane

Amazingly CNN covered a story about a Bush ad that was manipulated. It really wasn't all that serious because I do photo manipulation and can do it to videos too. Sometimes you have to fix things up if you don't have the right footage. The story broke at DailyKos. The ad, ironically said, "Whatever it takes". heh.

This reminded me of other manipulations used by this administration. Remember the staged toppling of the Saddam Statue in Iraq? Ah those were the days. In case you don't remember, you can see it here and here where you don't see an awful lot of people gathered around to topple the statue do you? Not when you get to see a long shot. And here is more media manipulation and then here's an eyewitnesss report of the staged photo op with "rent-a-crowd". And let's not forget about the photoshopped picture of the crowd here. ooh that was a big story.

It also reminded me of the day that Preznit Codpiece landed on the aircraft carrier and the aircraft carrier had to be turned around so that the viewers wouldn't see San Diego in the background. (they were right off the coast of California that day. bush could have rowed a boat to the aircraft carrier but bush's handlers thought it would be cooler if it looked like he had to fly a fighter plane out to the middle of the ocean somewhere to meet up with the guys) We all remember the Mission Accomplished fiasco after that.

It also reminded me of last Thanksgiving where I was almost fooled into believing that bush did a pretty cool thing. The top secret trip to Baghdad. It was the great turkey tour. But alas, it was a photo-op turkey. Soldiers were turned away from the event as only pre-selected soldiers were allowed in. The weirdest part was when the story emerged that bush's plane was spotted by a British Airways Flight and souvenirs were made with the words, "Did I just see Air force one?" before bush's plane even landed back in Texas but then that British airways story was debunked because British Airways denied the whole thing and then the bushcrimefamily decided it was best to stop pushing that story. Well the whole thanksgiving was a photo-op. He was probably just jealous that Hillary was going to be there.

Well I just took a trip down memory hole lane with my bookmarks folder on the old trusty browser. What other staged and manipulated photo-ops were there? 9-11? What else?

Use BugMeNot.com to get user names and passwords for some articles.

The God Factor in the Election

Who ever thought that God would be a factor in an election? Who ever thought that an evil power would use God's name to recruit followers? My mom always told me that the devil would come a knocking in the guise of a good guy. There are always plenty of people who have blind faith and those are the people, while well meaning deep down inside, are being led to slaughter and have an unusually important role to play in the upcoming election. How do you convince them to vote correctly without telling them that they are ignorant? Hmmm.

I learned something since I got involved in the internet and met people from all over the world in all walks of life: There is truth in all religions. You just have to try to dig it out from under all the muck. I have befriended Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Ethical Humanists and I have learned that the one thing, the big thing that is constant in all religions, which therefore must be truth is how we treat our neighbors, especially those who are less fortunate than we are. Anything else is just filler, conjecture and opinion.

So here is the weekend reading assignment for all progressives:
Faith Abuse: When God Becomes A Campaign Ploy
Arianna Huffington:

"As someone for whom faith is incredibly important, and who regularly prays for all the people and things that matter to me, I'm hopeful that God is as appalled as I am with the way His name is constantly being taken in vain on the Bush campaign trail, and with how the president is abusing his faith to justify to himself and to the world his disastrous policies. "

Faith, Hope and Clarity
Robert Wright, New York Times

"Every morning President Bush reads a devotional from "My Utmost for His Highest," a collection of homilies by a Protestant minister named Oswald Chambers, who lived a century ago. As Mr. Bush explained in an interview broadcast on Tuesday on Fox News, reading Chambers is a way for him "on a daily basis to be in the Word."

Chambers's book continues to sell well, especially an updated edition with the language tweaked toward the modern. Inspecting the book - or the free online edition - may give even some devout Christians qualms about America's current guidance."

Is George Bush the Christians' Christian?
By Steven Waldman

"Conservatives are right when they say that the faith-makes-you-irrational idea is a gross caricature. What Bush supporters are less willing to admit is that President Bush has helped to promote this caricature that liberals now exploit.

The president repeatedly says he makes decisions based on "instinct" and "gut" and by looking into the hearts of world leaders. He lets it be known that he doesn't read the newspapers. He seems to discourage dissenting viewpoints. He jokes about his poor command of the English language and his lousy grades in school. He is America's most famous evangelical Christian and he's proudly anti-intellectual. "

Why Are Some American Christians So Bloodthirsty?
Understanding Pro-war Christians' Indifference to Civilian Deaths
by Dr. Teresa Whitehurst

"...conservative Christianity in the U.S. has succumbed to that which it has, in decades past, most rigorously warned against: moral relativism. By restricting any discussion of morality to sexual behavior, right-wing politicians have obliterated the once-central Christian teaching that the way we teach others is of paramount importance to God. Cleverly "working the room," pro-war politicians have infiltrated churches to such a degree that killings and torture are no longer within the province of morality. When morality is only about sex, no aspect of war – even the killing of entire families – can arouse criticism, much less condemnation."

The mark of a chosen person (repost)
by Jeffrey John

The Church that Jesus first assembled was a gang of sinners and rejects. Any Church that is His Church ought to know that it is the same. It has to show the same kind of love, the kind that includes and embraces first, then let’s the love do the healing from the inside. That’s what Catholic means. Michael Marshall once wrote: ‘the test of genuinely Catholic Christianity is not that it makes good people better, but that it makes bad people holy’.

Conflicted Evangelicals Could Cost Bush Votes (repost)
By Peter Wallsten, LA Times

"I'm very antiabortion, but the reality is the right to life encompasses a much broader field than just abortion," he added. "If I'm a proponent of life, I have to think about the consequences of not providing prescription drugs to seniors or sending young men off to war."

BIBLICAL PERVERSION ON THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT:
WHAT THE BIBLE REALLY SAYS ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY (repost)
Daniel A. Helminiak, Ph.D.

We're still discussing this article on Blondesense here.

And Michael Miller told me about this gem. Oy vay:
The Godly Must Be Crazy
By Glenn Scherer

"President Reagan's first secretary of the interior, James Watt, told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. "God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back,"

*******************

"O my Lord, if I worship You from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell,
and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me thence,
but if I worship You for Your own sake,
then withhold not from me Your Eternal Beauty..."
-- Rabi'ah Al'Adawiya ,
Muslim & Sufi mystic poet born in Basra, Iraq (717 - 801 CE)

Thanks Mohsan

My Question and Your Answers

by pissed off patricia

Whew, I thought maybe my little mental train had jumped the track. Thank goodness I was wrong.

When I asked the other day which you feared most, another attack in the US or four more years of bush, I was being a bit selfish. I had beat myself up about this question. I had asked myself the same question and my answer agreed pretty much with yours. Four more years of bush was my biggest concern.

Sometimes when I hear that over fifty percent of the country is on the opposite side of an issue than I am, I take a timeout to analyze my own feelings. I ask myself why I seem to be out of the flock on the issue. I try to keep myself in check, because with all that's happening I want to make sure I'm not getting so wrapped up in my own account of things that I blind myself to reality. It's sort of like removing my glasses and cleaning them to be sure I am seeing the picture clearly.

There is so much negative activity in our world today that at times you have to question, because you can't and don't want to believe what you're hearing. We have the voting wars of today right here at our doorstep. Americans are questioning Americans about the legitimacy of our most prized part of democracy. Americans are trying to take away one another's right to vote. Think about it. How in the world did it come to this?

In one of the polls, the majority of Americans did not believe the election will be legitimate. Yet we are encouraging Iraqis to adopt our form of democracy. Sounds to me like we need to do some work at home before we dictate how others will run their country.

I have a theory about why the Republicans seem to be on such a nasty streak. They are following their leader. They have seen bush lie time and again and he never is required to atone for his lies. Somehow his lies seem to be acceptable because of his declared religious ordainment. Seems if you lie about your reasons for doing something, these lies are of no consequence as long as you achieve the outcome you desire. That's exactly what has been happening. He lied about his reasons for invading Iraq, but now those lies are acceptable because Saddam is in a jail somewhere. The Republicans are lying and cheating and they believe their lies are acceptable if they can accomplish a second term for bush. Bush has demonstrated that in his newly created America this sort of approach is completely acceptable when trying to attain your goal. The end justifies the means and there are no rules regarding the means.

That's what makes a second term for bush so frightening to me. During these last four years the rules have changed and there may be "no turning back". Many of us cling to the belief that one must be held accountable for their mistakes and surely for their lies. We are of the attitude that a leader should be accountable to the citizens he leads. Wasn't that the way we grew up? Weren't we taught that in order to be a good person you kept your nose clean, you had to accept responsibility for your own actions, and you must at all times be considerate of those around you? Now we have a group of people leading our country and trashing everything we believe to be the positive backbone or our society. No wonder we're frightened by four more years of bush. We are frightened that bush and his supporters have lost their heart, their conscience, and most fearfully, their respect and consideration for the truth. When the value of truth has been discarded, what is left? When lies are conveniently relegated to simple justification, we can see the darkness of the future and that is surely frightening.

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

Question: Who was voted the Movie Villain of the Year?

Answer: The president of these United States is the winner. The man many believe was chosen by god. The compassionate leader of our country.

Bush voted "Movie Villain of the Year"

"The American "Axis of Evil" fighter is wooing voters with security pledges ahead of the presidential election next week, but it was Bush's role in Michael Moore's anti-war film "Fahrenheit 9/11" that won him the villainous title.

In a poll for Total Film magazine, the U.S. leader fought off competition from such well-known baddies as atomic scientist Doctor Octopus from "Spider-Man 2" and fellow Texan Leatherface from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

"The overwhelming response of our readers voting Bush top villain just goes to show how frightening people found him in Fahrenheit 9/11," Total Film's editor Matt Mueller told Reuters.

"He was absolutely terrifying in that film. The infamous scene where he's informed about the Twin Towers attack while visiting a school, and sits there absolutely paralysed, is enough to strike fear into anyone's heart," he said."

"I hope I am not responsible for Armageddon"

Eyewitness to a failure in Iraq
By Peter W. Galbraith
Excerpt from Boston Globe

On April 16, 2003, a mob attacked and looted the Iraqi equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control, taking live HIV and black fever virus among other potentially lethal materials. US troops were stationed across the street but did not intervene because they didn't know the building was important.

When he found out, the young American lieutenant was devastated. He shook his head and said, "I hope I am not responsible for Armageddon." About the same time, looters entered the warehouses at Iraq's sprawling nuclear facilities at Tuwaitha on Baghdad's outskirts. They took barrels of yellowcake (raw uranium), apparently dumping the uranium and using the barrels to hold water. US troops were at Tuwaitha but did not interfere.

You were only doing what your commanders ordered you to do, soldier. Nothing. But thanks for caring.

Use BugMeNot.com to get user names and passwords for some articles.

Help Bush Win

Go here to donate money to bush's lawyers to ensure compliance with federal law for general election legal and for recount expenses in the event there is a post Election Day legal battle.

Bush Finger

If you click on the picture of bush giving you the finger on the sidebar, you will see the complete video which was made into a Flash file by my other favorite online priest, Rev. Mykeru of Mykeru.com.

Just what you expected...

"She went to Valle Del Norte Community Center in Albuquerque, planning to vote for John Kerry. "I pushed his name, but a green check mark appeared before President Bush's name," she said.

Griffith erased the vote by touching the check mark at Bush's name. That's how a voter can alter a touch-screen ballot.

She again tried to vote for Kerry, but the screen again said she had voted for Bush. The third time, the screen agreed that her vote should go to Kerry.

She faced the same problem repeatedly as she filled out the rest of the ballot. On one item, "I had to vote five or six times," she said."

Read the rest

Ranting about morality

By Blondesense

What is morality?

Some people seem to think that morality is owned by the "right". This couldn't be further from the truth. The right is confused about what morality is and what the bible says about morality. Sexual morality is a teeny tiny part of morality. In the big picture of life, how we treat others defines our morality. How we treat the poor and disenfranchised is the most important and most often referred to virtue in the "right's" bible.

Jesus didn't say, "When I was hungry, you took away women's rights; when I was thirsty, you persecuted homosexuals; when I was homeless, you embarked on a crusade against brown skinned people; when I was sick, you ripped off senior citizens."

Today's activity for right wingers: Cut out all the references to the poor from your bible and you can stash your handgun in there.

What is so moral about the right these days?

Opposition to raise minimum wage? no
Restricting women's reproductive rights? no
Systematic undermining of minorities via voting, schools, prisons? no
Turning a blind eye to the atrocities in prisons? no
Laughing off the atrocities at Abu Ghraib as silly college pranks? no
Not funding the No Child Left Behind Act? no
Opposition to affordable housing? no
Tax cuts for the very wealthy? no
Top 1% have more wealth than rest of country? no
Opposing affordable healthcare for all? no
Undermining homosexuals at all costs? no
A kill the opposition or throw them in jail mentality? no
Turning a willfully blind eye to the atrocities committed by our countrymen in the middle east? no
There are more, you add them.

The ironic thing is that the right will tell the moderates and the left that we cannot expect the government to help poor people because it would cost too much. An unjust war in Iraq is ok? 225 billion dollars to kill brown skinned people for oil is ok? And corporate welfare isn't costing us anything? 43 billion dollars in tax cuts. People are losing good jobs to India and getting new jobs at Burger King. The corporations are doing just great and the rich are benefiting.

Is it moral to just sit back while the poor are refused relief? Is that what Jesus would have wanted? Can the right sleep at night knowing that so many American children go to bed hungry? How can these children concentrate in school on an empty stomach? How will they rise out of their poverty if they are too hungry to pay attention at school? Instead of trying to lift the poor out of oppression, they build more prisons for them.

"Oh you're just a socialist" they like to say. So? So the hell what! Who said socialism is bad? Any Christian theologian would tell you that Jesus was a socialist, liberal Jew. The right doesn't study the bible. They pick and choose verses that seemingly back up their warped beliefs. They do not take bible verses in context. They use it like a quote generator. They use it to oppress and hurt others.

Why do a vocal minority of people in this country oppose homosexuality? Guilt, baby. Guilt. They are gay themselves and refuse to deal with it. They falsely believed that the bible condemns homosexuality and chose to live a life in the closet. They want to break free but are too sexually repressed, hung up or just plain embarrassed. They are bitter people who are unhappy with their own lives and feel better when they hurt those who are brave enough to accept who they are.

Bitchin' and It's Getting Too Damned Easy.

by pissed off patricia

Today bush said about Kerry, referring to Kerry's comments about the missing explosives in Iraq, "A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as commander in chief"

Okay, we rest our case. Bush just admitted that he is not a person we want as commander in chief. Apparently bush has forgotten that he is a political candidate who jumped to conclusions and then into war without knowing the facts. Ha! We got him. What a great campaign ad that would make for Kerry.

More from Reuter's about the new tape threat

Here's what Reuters has on their site about the new tape.

" ABC News has asked U.S. security officials to examine a videotape it obtained in Pakistan of an English-speaking man threatening a massive attack on the United States in retaliation for its war against al Qaeda, the network said on Wednesday.

A source familiar with the tape -- whose authenticity U.S. intelligence officials have so far been unable to verify -- said it contains a threat that the "streets will run with blood."

Responding to questions about the tape after its existence was first reported by Internet columnist Matt Drudge, ABC News vice president Jeffrey Schneider said the network has not aired the video because its authenticity has not been verified.

"We've been working around the clock in an effort to authenticate the content of the tape," Schneider told Reuters. "We have worked with the CIA and the FBI, neither of whom have authenticated the tape. Obviously, it would be beyond irresponsible to broadcast this tape without first authenticating it."

He said the tape was obtained from a source in Pakistan over the weekend and arrived in New York on Monday, where it was first viewed by network officials. He declined to discuss details of it.

Government officials in Washington confirmed that the CIA was analyzing the videotape. One official said it was not yet known whether the tape is authentic or a hoax.

The source familiar with the tape told Reuters that the hourlong video features a man, whose face is concealed by a headdress, warning that a forthcoming attack on the United States would dwarf the suicide hijackings on Sept. 11, 2001, that claimed nearly 3,000 lives.

According to the source, the man says, "The streets will run with blood" and says the United States has brought this on itself for electing a president who has declared war on Islam by attacking the former Taliban rulers in Afghanistan and waging war against al Qaeda.

The source added that linguistic experts who have examined the tape believe the man, who identifies himself only as "Assam the American," learned English at a very young age but is not a native speaker of the language.

"The intelligence community is analyzing it, working to verify its authenticity," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters in Vienna, Ohio.

A U.S. intelligence official said, "We have been unable to verify the tape's authenticity." The official added the review was continuing.

The question of whether the United States could be subjected to another Sept. 11-type attack has been a major issue in the presidential campaign."

Ya Gotta Love This Guy

Write More About Skull & Bones
Secret societies? UFOs?
The truth about what really happened on 9/11?
The media cowers

By Mark Morford

I get this a lot: Hey Mark, you're a rather weird, unconventional columnist, why don't you quit toeing the typical blasé journalism line and renounce the corporate-controlled news feeds and standard pop-culture drivel and instead write about the real truths, the real and sinister power structures at work in America and the world?

Like for example how both Kerry and Bush are members of mega-yuppie Yale secret society/boys' club Skull & Bones, and therefore suckle at the same tit of nefarious primeval Illuminati power and draw their ideas from same trough of covert draconian ideology, the one that is right now running the world via an insanely intricate network of corporate fronts and Swiss bank accounts and invisible spaceships and ancient cabals featuring really elaborate handshakes that would make "The Da Vinci Code" seem like a day at the sandbox? Hmm?

And why, furthermore, don't you talk about the real truths of 9/11? Like how BushCo not only allowed the tragedy to occur to further his administration's snarling agenda but also how he actually made it happen, signed the order himself, with the full and complicit cooperation of the FBI and the CIA and the Saudis and maybe even Enron and the Wal-Mart heirs and probably the Olsen twins.

Read the rest

Fox news reporting threatening tape

Fox News is reporting that there is a new tape and the content threatens another attack on the US and the threat is that the next attack will be bigger than 9-11.  Seems the man on the tape speaks English and the tape came out of Pakistan. 

Observations

by pissed off patricia

I see that Zell Miller is along for the ride today as bush does his campaign monologue.  Why?  Does the bush campaign really want to remind voters of the insanity in their party?  I mean, come on.   Is the face of Zell Miller and the memories of his insanity during and after his speech at the Republican convention, something you would want in the back ground as you tried to convince the public that your decisions during the last four years were based on sound judgment?  The person who made the decision to go to the asylum and spring old Zell for a campaign appearance really should be fired.  Talk about the fear factor.

Why does Lynn Cheney always appear with Dick?  She is seen sitting on a stool behind him at almost every one of his appearances.  Maybe they think that seeing her eases the pain of seeing Dick.  It doesn't work for me.  She is sort of like the Ed McMahon to Dick's Johnny Carson or the Charles McCord to Dick's Don Imus.  The ass kissing sidekick who laughs at all the right times whether or not the jokes are funny.  The ever-present person who nods in agreement no matter how ridiculous the last statement might have been.  The built in cheerleader to the big guy.  I guess because of Dick’s persistent dour expression, they need someone to let you know when he's attempting to be funny.  Sad thing is, Dick isn't funny.  He's  mocking Senator Kerry and being evilly sarcastic, because his administration has squat to brag about.  He reminds me of a fiend who sits drooling, rubbing his hands together and licking his chops, before munching on some poor unsuspecting victim. 

Then finally, we have bush with that funky hand gesture.  You know the one.  The one where he acts like he's trying to slam something down on the podium.  He does it when he makes one of his almost coherent declarations, such as he has made us safer, or he will not change course no matter what.  He slams his hand down as though he is hammering the fact into the heads of his audience.  It's sort of a  “here's what I'm telling you, don't argue with me” slam down hand and case closed.  Notice also that he seems to smile at the most peculiar and inappropriate times during his speech.  What's that all about? 

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

"It does not seem to trouble either Rove or Bush that they are moving us toward a Twenty-first Century civil war -- and that, once again, Southern conservatism is at its core. Only a miracle, it strikes me, can prevent this election from descending into post-election chaos. But given the alternatives, a miracle is what I am hoping for."

-John Dean-���

Statue of Limitations

Read more

I also like Doomocracy's Statue of Liberty

Conflicted Evangelicals Could Cost Bush Votes

Oh my gawd, many evangelicals are christian after all. They are starting to get it. They don't all have it yet, but they are thinking. Maybe they will decide to stay home on November 2nd.

There is a God! Here's Proof.

"I'm very antiabortion, but the reality is the right to life encompasses a much broader field than just abortion," he added. "If I'm a proponent of life, I have to think about the consequences of not providing prescription drugs to seniors or sending young men off to war."

That kind of talk, coming from a conservative Christian who might ordinarily be inclined to vote Republican, could portend trouble for Bush.

This kind of news makes me realize that people are basically good and they can spot evil lurking behind a bogus "pro-life" stance.

100 Facts and 1 Opinion

The Non-Arguable Case against the bushcrimefamily at The Nation

This is a must see and must pass around story. It's all here.

Get yer banjos out of the closet

Several States to Consider Gay Marriage Ban Amendments on November 2: Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Utah.


Are you humming the theme to Deliverance yet?

Sign Stealer Falls on Face

This is just too funny and sad. Poetic justice.Read the story

Uh Oh

Allawi blames U.S. for soldiers massacre
Aljazeera.com reports:
"Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has accused the U.S. occupation forces of “gross negligence” over the massacre of 49 unarmed Iraqi soldiers, who were found shot to death on Saturday. 

"There was great negligence on the part of some coalition forces," Allawi told Iraq's interim national assembly.

He also denounced the massacre as a "heinous crime" against the Iraqi National Guards and said that a special investigation was under way."

Grandmother asks Cheney about Iraq

CNN.com reports that Cheney may have a tiny bit of heart left because this 62 year old grandmother in a wheelchair whose grandson was killed in Iraq, was not kicked out of the Bush-Cheney rally. You decide:

Hobbs asked Cheney, "Is there anybody who knows a time limit" for pulling out of Iraq? "I have four over there. ... I had one killed. ... I'd like a little peace."

Given to understatement, the vice president calmly replied: "I appreciate very much obviously the sacrifice they made. ... If you put an artificial date on it, what with the terrorists just waiting until that day arrives, Americans withdraw, and then they'll reinsert themselves, that's not acceptable."

"I appreciate very much obviously the sacrifice they made." Wow what a show of emotion. What a man! God bless america, land that I love... etc etc

Bitchin' again

This falls under the "holy shit" category!


By Greg Palast
Reporting for BBC's Newsnight
A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

Mass challenges

They may then only vote "provisionally" after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status.

Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter "in the 16 years I've been supervisor of elections."

"Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting."

Sancho calls it "intimidation." And it may be illegal.

In Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas, noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters.

The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black residents.

When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list, Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature.

Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say it would not be used in that manner.

Rather, she did acknowledge that the party's poll workers will be instructed to challenge voters, "Where it's stated in the law."

There was no explanation as to why such clerical matters would be sent to top officials of the Bush campaign in Florida and Washington.

Private detective

In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.

The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.

On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats

UPDATE: Here is a link to watch the report in Real Video. One million black votes were not counted in 2000.

Homosexuality in the Bible

From Heterosexualbreeding.com

Excerpts from:

BIBLICAL PERVERSION ON THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT: WHAT THE BIBLE REALLY SAYS ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY
Daniel A. Helminiak, Ph.D. (Roman Catholic theologian Daniel A. Helminiak was ordained a priest in the city of Rome and holds two Ph.D.'s—in theology and psychology )

1. Genesis 19:1–11 tells the story of Sodom, destroyed by fire and brimstone. What was the sin? Ezekiel 16:49 names it outright: "They had pride, excess of food and prosperous ease, and did not aid the poor and needy." No mention of sex at all! Same thing in the deuterocanonical book of Wisdom 19:13: "hatred toward strangers." When Jesus sent out his disciples, he told them it would be worse for a town who rejects them than it was for Sodom and Gomorrah (Matthew 10:5–15).

I also learned this in the seminary. The sin of Sodom was inhospitality towards strangers and the sin of pride. I also learned that Mary Magdalen was NOT a prostitute.

2. According to Leviticus 18:22, "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman: it is an abomination." Abomination sounds pretty bad in contemporary English, but the Hebrew and the ancient Greek translation both use words that mean a religious violation: unclean, impure, taboo—exactly like eating pork or shellfish, sewing two kinds of cloth into one garment, or having a menstrual flow of blood or a seminal emission. In the Hebrew Scriptures, abomination means religious taboo, ritual impurity; it does not imply inherent wrong or sin.

I learned this in the seminary too. Homosexuality is about as serious a sin to catholics as was eating meat on Friday.

3. Romans 1:26–27: "Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another."

The Greek words translated as "unnatural," para physin , would more accurately read "atypical" or "uncustomary." The early Stoic philosophers used these words to mean unnatural, but the words imply no ethical condemnation for the apostle Paul. In Romans 11:24, he applies these same words to God's actions. God grafted the Gentiles into the Jewish people, a wild branch into a cultivated vine. Not your standard modus operandi; rather, an unusual thing to do, i.e., "atypical," nothing more. The whole anti-gay "unnatural" hullabaloo rests on this mistranslation.

Likewise, Paul's other words describing gay sex, "degrading" and "shameless," carry no ethical connotation for Paul. They merely imply social disapproval. Paul is talking about impurities, taboos, uncleanness. He has the ancient Jewish Law about impurity in mind. He says so outright in 1:24.

The whole point of Paul's letter is to insist, with Jesus, that impurity is irrelevant for Christians. He uses gay sex as his example, and he is indifferent to the matter: "I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself" (Romans 14:14). In mentioning homosexuality, Paul was merely echoing the Jewish Christians' prejudice in order to win initial approval and a hearing from them. Then he went on to rebuke their self-righteousness.

The religious right makes the mistake of reading their own preoccupations into Paul's terminology. They make the further mistake of uniting verses 26–27 of Romans 1 with verses 28–32. But verse 28 changes topics. Paul is contrasting impurity with real sin. He is not identifying homosexuality, as the Fundamentalists would, with "evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, etc., etc." Far from condemning gay sex, Paul was reprimanding the Jewish Christians for dividing the Christian community over it. Every textual consideration supports this conclusion.

Let's not forget that Paul also suggested that people do not marry unless they are unable to abstain from sex (I Corinthians 7:8–9). That has to be put into context though. When St Paul was writing his letters, people at that time believed that Jesus' return was imminent. They truly believed that they were in the last days. That passage is what got the catholics to demand that their priests wouldn't marry. oy what a mess that turned into.

Romans 2:1: "You therefore have no defence—you who sit in judgement, whoever you may be—for in judging your fellow-man you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, are equally guilty."

Most of all, what did Jesus say about homosexuality?

NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH
(He did say a lot about adultery, divorce and remarriage. Those are no no's that the Christian right are conveniently ignoring.)

When did the explosives go missing?

CNN Report: Explosives could not be found when U.S. troops arrived
"The mystery surrounding the disappearance of 380 tons of powerful explosives from a storage depot in Iraq has taken a new twist, after a television news crew embedded with the U.S. military during the invasion of Iraq reported that the material could not be found when American troops arrived.

NBC News reported that on April 10, 2003, its crew was embedded with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division when troops arrived at the Al Qaqaa storage facility south of Baghdad.

While the troops found large stockpiles of conventional explosives, they did not find HMX or RDX, the types of powerful explosives that reportedly went missing, according to NBC.

The International Atomic Energy Agency revealed Monday that it had been told two weeks ago by the Iraqi government that 380 tons of HMX and RDX disappeared from Al Qaqaa after Saddam Hussein's government fell." Read the rest

A peek into bushmail

Republican insider emails published, sent accidentally to www.georgewbush .org , not .com .
Check it out.

UPDATE: See Patricia's post above by Greg Palast and the caging list which is on the bushmail link. This information has been helpful in discovering how the Florida Republicans plan to block black votes in Florida on November 2nd. Here is the video. You have to see this.

A Culture of Cover-Ups

By PAUL KRUGMAN , NY TIMES
Published: October 26, 2004

Aides to John Kerry say that if he wins, he'll replace Porter Goss as head of the C.I.A. Let's hope so: Mr. Goss has already confirmed the fears of those who worried about his appointment by placing Republican staff members from Capitol Hill in key positions and raising fears about a partisan purge.

But the flap over Mr. Goss is only a symptom of a much broader issue: whether the Bush administration will be able to maintain its culture of cover-ups. That culture affects every branch of policy, but it's strongest when it comes to the "war on terror."

Although President Bush's campaign is based almost entirely on his self-proclaimed leadership in that war, his officials have thrown a shroud of secrecy over any information that might let voters assess his performance.

Yesterday we got two peeks under that shroud. One was The Times's report about what the International Atomic Energy Agency calls "the greatest explosives bonanza in history." Ignoring the agency's warnings, administration officials failed to secure the weapons site, Al Qaqaa, in Iraq, allowing 377 tons of deadly high explosives to be looted, presumably by insurgents.

The administration is trying to play down the importance of this loss, arguing that because Iraq was awash in munitions, a few hundred more tons don't make much difference. But aside from their potential use in nuclear weapons - the reason they were under seal before the war - these particular explosives, unlike standard munitions, are exactly what a terrorist needs.

Informed sources quoted by the influential Nelson Report say explosives from Al Qaqaa are the "primary source" of the roadside and car bombs that have killed and wounded so many U.S. soldiers. And thanks to the huge amount looted - "in a highly organized operation using heavy equipment" - the insurgents and whoever else have access to the Qaqaa material have enough explosives for tens of thousands of future bombs.

If the administration had had its way, the public would never have heard anything about this. Administration officials have known about the looting of Al Qaqaa for at least six months, and probably much longer. But they didn't let the I.A.E.A. inspect the site after the war, and pressured the Iraqis not to inform the agency about the loss. They now say that they didn't want our enemies - that is, the people who stole the stuff - to know it was missing. The real reason, obviously, was that they wanted the news kept under wraps until after Nov. 2.

The story of the looted explosives has overshadowed another report that Bush officials tried to suppress - this one about how the Bush administration let Abu Musab al-Zarqawi get away. An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal confirmed and expanded on an "NBC Nightly News" report from March that asserted that before the Iraq war, administration officials called off a planned attack that might have killed Mr. Zarqawi, the terrorist now blamed for much of the mayhem in that country, in his camp.

Citing "military officials," the original NBC report explained that the failure to go after Mr. Zarqawi was based on domestic politics: "the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq" - a part of Iraq not controlled by Saddam Hussein - "could undermine its case for war against Saddam." The Journal doesn't comment on this explanation, but it does say that when NBC reported, correctly, that Mr. Zarqawi had been targeted before the war, administration officials denied it.

What other mistakes did the administration make? If partisan appointees like Mr. Goss continue to control the intelligence agencies, we may never know.

This isn't speculation: Mr. Goss is already involved in a new cover-up. Last week Robert Scheer of The Los Angeles Times revealed the existence of a devastating but suppressed report by the C.I.A.'s inspector general on 9/11 intelligence failures. Newsweek has now confirmed the gist of Mr. Scheer's column.

The report, the magazine says, "identifies a host of current and former officials who could be candidates for possible disciplinary procedures." But although the report was completed in June, Mr. Goss has refused to release it to Congress. "Everyone feels it will be better if this hits the fan after the election," an official told the magazine. Better for whom?

What really happened on 9/11, or in Iraq? Next week's election may determine whether we ever find out.

Use BugMeNot.com to get user names and passwords for some articles.

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

Are They Dodging the "D" Word?

Check out this article in USA TODAY

"U.S. considers ways to increase troops in Iraq for vote"

"Concerned that they won't get enough new troops from allies to help provide security for Iraqi elections in January, Pentagon officials are considering increasing the current U.S. force by delaying the departures of some U.S. troops now in Iraq and accelerating the deployment of others scheduled to go there next year."

AND
"The goal is to temporarily raise the number of U.S. troops in Iraq from the current 138,000 to almost 160,000 to help protect international and Iraqi election workers and secure polling locations.

That addition would bring the sustained U.S. troop presence in Iraq to its highest level since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003.

Defense officials were reluctant to discuss the options on the record. But Capt. Harold Pittman, a spokesman for Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of Central Command, said, "Obviously, we are looking at all of those options and taking everything into account. ... There are a lot of options, possibilities and venues on the table to provide additional security during the election time frame."

Now add this little tidbit from the Seattle Times.

"The Bush administration intends to seek about $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year, pushing total war costs close to $225 billion since the invasion of Iraq early last year, Pentagon and congressional officials said yesterday.

White House budget office spokesman Chad Kolton emphasized that final decisions on the supplemental spending request will not be made until shortly before the request is sent to Congress. That may not happen until early February, when President Bush would submit his budget for fiscal 2006 if he wins re-election."

This war is draining our soldiers lives and our pocket books, with no end in sight. Could be that bush's chosen war will bleed our country dry. These two articles seem to suggest we have already become anemic.

God Holds His Nose And Uses What He's Got

My favorite blogging priest, Fr Jake, pointed out this article which should be read in its entirety.

Excerpt:If you're ever disillusioned by other Christians it's your own fault because you shouldn't have had illusions in the first place - either about them or yourself. We are all on the margins where God is concerned, but he holds his nose and he uses what he's got. If he wants to use a bad-tempered old bag to feed the poor of Calcutta, who are we to say otherwise? If he wants to use a rampant adulterer to bring freedom to a billion black people, who are we to complain? It was probably their sins that brought them to God in the first place. The question for us is, what comparable good have we achieved to balance out ours?

The Church that Jesus first assembled was a gang of sinners and rejects. Any Church that is His Church ought to know that it is the same. It has to show the same kind of love, the kind that includes and embraces first, then let’s the love do the healing from the inside. That’s what Catholic means. Michael Marshall once wrote: ‘the test of genuinely Catholic Christianity is not that it makes good people better, but that it makes bad people holy’.

Or as Oscar Wilde, another good Catholic put it: We are all in the gutter; but some of us are looking at the stars.

Reminds me of my good friend who belonged to a rather unusual Christian sect/religion. Her priest visited her while I was there. I didn't mean to be rude, but I was a newly graduated M.Div and eager to challenge the world. Her priest warned her not to watch tv, not to bring her son to a bowling alley (bowling alleys were completely outlawed) and all sorts of rules and regulations. So naturally I had to bring up Jesus' ministry to the marginal, the outcasts, etc. I inquired of the priest why shouldn't good Christians be permitted to bowl with the dregs of society in a bowling alley if only to witness to the loving character of god and to be a light in the world. He explained that Christians are not of this world. He was wrong. I told him so. When I received my diploma in 1992 from the catholic bishop in our diocese, he asked me what I, a lowly catholic woman, was planning on doing with my degree in theology. I told him that I would probably be a bartender or something. He thought that was a splendid idea and fully in keeping with Jesus' ministry. I ended up teaching children for several years and now I play my music in bars.

P.S. You can ignore my religious ramblings if you wish. What actually brought me to politics was the misuse of Jesus' ministry by the religious right who are so very wrong. Even though I am agnostic, like I've said many times, we need more Jesus-oriented people in the world and less formal rules and obligations. Love and compassion are in your heart no matter what your god is. Rules and regulations obliterate what is etched in our hearts by the creator.

bush supporters still living in la la land

It blows my mind to see how ill informed bush supporters are in contrast to Kerry supporters. According to PIPA, 72% of bush supporters still believe there were WMDs in Iraq and 75% believe that Iraq was supporting al Qaida. Is this willful ignorance or are bush supporters just naive?

Here comes the really strange part and this is the part where the media and John Kerry didn't do their jobs: Asked whether the US should have gone to war with Iraq if US intelligence had concluded that Iraq was not making WMD or providing support to al Qaeda, 58% of Bush supporters said the US should not have, and 61% assume that in this case the President would not have.

I've actually met bush supporters who were college educated and seemingly bright and competant. So what gives? I still come across Long Island rednecks who actually argue with me about verifiable facts regarding the war in Iraq. What is to argue? Facts are facts. My own inlaws in New Hampshire who are college educated, both veterans of WWII and they actually read the newspapers are still supporting bush. They still believe there were WMDs in Iraq! They are in their 80's and sharp as tacks, except when it comes to bush. I found out that they listen to bush and cheney speeches as well as conservative talk radio. We need a news filter, ladies and gentleman.

So basically bush supporters are lied to and they believe it. Why shouldn't they? Many of them, like my inlaws fought against fascism in WWII and they believe that this country is the greatest so it's inconceivable that they would be lied to or deliberately mislead by radio talk show hosts or their very own president and veep. I was raised to believe that this was the greatest, most honest country in the world. I can still hear my father admonishing me whenever I suggested that something was not right with America.

Some think I took glee in discovering that we were fed more propaganda than the Russians. I absolutely did not enjoy that revelation. I was so freaked out that I was that I went back to my shrink in the summer of 2003 after months of trying to get people to listen to me. He medicated the hell out of me. I didn't change my position, but I was much calmer. He thought I was making stuff up (and I shouldn't tell anyone what I was thinking) until this past summer when he apologized and confirmed that I was right on the money all along. My friends thought I had lost it. It's tough living here in Republicanland. Most people prefer to live in denial. I think it's nice to live in denial too. Sometimes I wish I were one of those bush supporters living in fantasy land. Facing reality was a tough thing for this blonde lady. It is a great tragedy to wake up from a dream to find out that there was an underlying nightmare all along.

How about you?

Bush: Weak on Nature

Mercury is dangerous. You know it. I know it.
I saw Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Bill Maher's show explaining how his mercury levels were high in his body- 3 times normal. He eats a lot of fish. He said that a woman with the same levels of mercury would bear children with cognitive brain damage. Last December, the bushcrimefamily wanted the EPA to remove mercury as a toxic substance. Yes you read that right. Corporations mean more to bush than people do. Bush is Weak on Nature, says Robert Kennedy

The best Dubya movie

trailer I have ever seen is at Dubyamovie.com.
Don Knotts plays Dubya.
Or
did Dubya play Don Knotts?

There Once Was A Fairness Doctrine In Media

For many years, television and radio stations were required to give equal time to opposing sides of public or political issues to ensure the American public heard all sides of a debate. It was a requirement made by the Federal Communications Commission that came to be known as The Fairness Doctrine.

In 1986, a federal court ruled that the Fairness Doctrine did not have the force of law and could be overturned without congressional approval. Congress passed a bill to make the doctrine law but the bill was vetoed by President Reagan in 1987 and the Fairness Doctrine was abolished.

Now there is a petition to Renew the Fairness Doctrine.

Spread this around. We could have used this like a year ago. Better late than never?

just when you were sure no one cared

Watch this powerful video clip from Representative Tim Ryan from Ohio at the League of Pissed Off Voters

http://www.indyvoter.org/

Part of the plan to crush our spirit and break our will is to isolate and marginalize liberals. It is part of the plan that we believe the propaganda that liberalism is dead. There is this notion in the wind that we have no credibility if we question Bush and his authority. What authority?

ABC News Sunday night reported that there is a possibility that hanging chads could happen again in Florida and Ohio. That's right. Blame the voter. Don't discuss how the voting apparatus failed. How that was part of the plan to steal Florida. Make sure the voter cannot punch through the chad so the ballot doesn't get counted. The elections officials didn't have the apparatus cleaned so that voters could properly punch holes on the punch card ballot.

They can't quite bring themselves to tell us the truth.

Use BugMeNot.com to get user names and passwords for some articles.

My Question

by pissed off patricia

Seriously, which worries you or frightens you more, another terrorist attack in the US, or another four more years of george bush? If you chose to answer, please explain. Think of the short and long term effects. How would each of these events effect you, our country and the world. I'm sincerely interested in what you have to say.

Conservatives For Kerry?

Front page of American Conservative: They don't support Bush

Excerpt from "Kerry’s the One" By Scott McConnell

But neoconservatism now encompasses much more than Israel-obsessed intellectuals and policy insiders. The Bush foreign policy also surfs on deep currents within the Christian Right, some of which see unqualified support of Israel as part of a godly plan to bring about Armageddon and the future kingdom of Christ. These two strands of Jewish and Christian extremism build on one another in the Bush presidency—and President Bush has given not the slightest indication he would restrain either in a second term. With Colin Powell’s departure from the State Department looming, Bush is more than ever the “neoconian candidate.” The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected.

This is telling

by pissed off patricia

As far as TV coverage, I know more about Ashley Simpson's screw up on Saturday Night Live, than I know about the missing 380 tons of missing explosives in Iraq.

Until now, I had no idea who Ashley Simpson was or what she did. However we have had ample coverage of the fiasco. I now know that she is a singer, I know the name of both songs she was supposed to sing, where she was holding the microphone when the music started, what she did before leaving the stage, when she left the stage and the excuse she later gave for leaving the stage.

If I depended on TV news alone, I would only know that the explosives were missing in Iraq but I would be sadly short on details.

Jon Stewart Roasts Real News

Did ya see Jon Stewart on 60 Minutes last night?

""I can't believe that the National Guard memo scandal is the only scandal in four years that has gotten elevated to the status of having a gate attached to it," says Stewart. "Rather-gate. For God's sake, we launched a war based on forged documents. That doesn't get a gate. How do you not get a gate outta that?"

"Dick Cheney's old company does business with Iran, in an offshore Cayman Islands group," adds Stewart. "No gate. Nothing." "

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia


John Lennon told us to "Imagine". Imagine this: Visualize Winning
After you view it, I'll bet you'll be smiling and energized. You may even be crying because it sounds and looks so damned good!
Enjoy!

Bitchin' Something to Consider

by pissed off patricia

Yesterday I heard someone talking about a gutsy move on behalf of a female and they said the woman "had balls". Well, I'm not fond of that phrase for a couple of reasons. First is sounds crude to me and second it seems to insinuate that for a woman to be strong, she has to imitate a man. Believe it or not, men did not invent strength and power, even though some would like you to believe that they did.

I think maybe I have a better idea. If, when a man is gutsy he is said to have balls, then I think if a woman is gutsy, she should be said to have bells. Men have balls, and women have bells. It sounds nicer and it doesn't associate a woman's strength with male genitalia. That is not where a woman's strength originates. To say that a woman has bells suggests that when women are strong their strength rings out. See, isn't that a better and more appropriate mental image?

The news today, oh boy

Compassiongate is a website dedicated to clearing up misinformation about John Kerry.
Because there is no regulation demanding that political candidates speak the truth, many Americans need to get their facts straight.

Try not to be mean to bush supporters as many of them have simply been hoodwinked by all the lies. I for one was very surprised and dismayed that there are no standards when it comes to politics for being honest. I am sickened when I watch tv and see pundits excusing lies as
"simply politics". There should be no excuse for lies and misleading by politicians. Why do we tolerate this?

Fascist Characteristic 3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause -- The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
Fascist Characteristic 6. Controlled Mass Media -- Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or through sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in wartime, is very common.

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Compassionate, my foot. bush's w is for women campaign is an outright fraud.
He is supposedly making inroads with women, especially mom's, using a fear tactic. It is reprehensible. Blair and Bush licking BBC makes a bogus case for women to support bush.

Characteristic of Fascism 7. Obsession with National Security -- Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

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The Coming Post-Election Chaos:

A Storm Warning of Things to Come If the Vote Is as Close as Expected
From John Dean's alarming article in FindLaw

"It does not seem to trouble either Rove or Bush that they are moving us toward a Twenty-first Century civil war -- and that, once again, Southern conservatism is at its core. Only a miracle, it strikes me, can prevent this election from descending into post-election chaos. But given the alternatives, a miracle is what I am hoping for."

Fascist Characteristic 14. Fraudulent Elections -- Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against (or even the assassination of) opposition candidates, the use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and the manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

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The NY Times Reports: Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq:

"The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year. "

...The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. It is unclear whether President Bush was informed.

...The explosives could also be used to trigger a nuclear weapon, which was why international nuclear inspectors had kept a watch on the material, and even sealed and locked some of it. The other components of an atom bomb - the design and the radioactive fuel - are more difficult to obtain.

...The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country.

Get our boys out of that country now. Our government is oblivious.

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Want proof that your government doesn't give a shit about our soldiers?
Iraq war veterans are speaking out.

Iraq veterans open up on mishandling of war

[Boetcher, a soldier] presented the audience with statistics showing how veterans are losing service benefits at a rapid rate. With lowered funding for support programs and the rising trend of soldiers being reactivated for a second tour of duty, there is little incentive to remain in the service.

[Jennifer Giese of the 826th Ordinance ]While the unit suffered no fatalities in Iraq, they were plagued the entire time by supply chain glitches. The unit never received body armor, and had to resort to stealing scrap metal for vehicle armor. Bottled water had to be rationed due to shortages, but Giese later filled a swimming pool for a general's use.

"This was a complete, chaotic mess," Giese said. "In my opinion there was no plan ... no one knew where we were going."

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If you are watching tv supposed news, you would get the impression that everything going wrong with our country is John Kerry's fault. The media allows this. Our media is corrupt and must be challenged. CNN, MSNBC, FOX should not be allowed to use the word "news" in their slogans or their titles. "News" insinuates reporting of facts. Americans are being misled by faux news and faux reporting.

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Rampant Sexism

Abortion crusade turns Republican women off Bush

Can you believe it? Well I can believe it because women, sorry guys, are intuitively more intelligent than men are, generally speaking. Women can easily see through the lies and distortions of the current republican party. We can see that their so-called "pro-life" stance is just a political ploy. The bush administration's actions in every other situation clearly show a disregard for human life and a deep hatred for women. For a neocon republican, the only good woman is a barefoot and pregnant woman.

Moderate republican women are calling for a return to the original republican party. A group called "Republicans Who Want Their Party Back". It's about time.

Characteristic of Fascism 5. Rampant Sexism -- The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and antigay legislation and national policy.

Another reason why the corporate media needs to be taken to task

Characteristic of Fascism #6: Controlled Mass Media -- Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or through sympathetic media spokespeople and executives.

Two Bush ads full of misleading and false statements ran more than 9,000 times in 45 cities last week. (Factcheck.org) This is absolutely disgraceful. A Truth in Presidential Candidates Act needs to be implemented.

speaking from sugar land, texas

Speaking from the gutter that is our political world, Tom DeLay said this week, “I’ve never had a campaign where the entire nation has tried to destroy my name. They are going after me in the most personal and vindictive way. It's gutter politics."

"I am effective and that's why they are after me," DeLay said. "I am passionate and aggressive about what I do."

They can’t do it alone. Are you passionately, aggressively doing your part to destroy the political career of Tom DeLay & George W. Bush?

According to the Houston Chronicle, “In recent weeks, the House ethics committee admonished DeLay for offering a political favor to a fellow Republican lawmaker if he voted for a Medicare prescription drug bill; for perceived links of political donations to legislation; and for asking federal aviation officials to help search for Democratic Texas state representatives who fled Austin last year during the redistricting fight.

Three of his political associates were recently indicted on charges of illegal political fund raising. DeLay called those charges laughable.”

What is tragic is DeLay, like George W. Bush, considers much of the solid science on global warming and the use of pesticides like DDT laughable. He thinks that his degree from the University of Houston and his career as a pest control businessman puts him in a position to criticize Nobel Prize laureates.

Like Bush who deeply believes that if one is “resolute” in the face of reality, reality will yield, and science will not matter.

This thinking is best exemplified by the word “Truth” encased by the plastic silhouette of a fish eating the plastic silhouette of a fish encasing the word “Darwin” on the bumpers of thousands of Bush and DeLay constituents in Texas.

If John Kerry is able to out-macho George W. Bush and is elected in November, he will have to contend with a House of Representatives led by Tom DeLay. DeLay isn’t going down for his crimes. Not in Texas, not with any jury impaneled here. He must be seen as such a liability that his own party rejects him as their majority leader.

The only way to defeat DeLay is by a national effort to marginalize him. Running a well financed credible candidate who can capitalize off of DeLay’s own maniacal egomania without allowing the press to characterize his candidacy as some romantic lost cause would be nice, but isn’t going to happen in the world of Texas, Inc. Robert Redford and Paul Newman could do advertisements for DeLay’s opponent and it would not defeat DeLay unless Redford or Newman moved to Sugar Land, Texas, ran against DeLay, registered and drove to the polls every unregistered voter in the district and held press conferences wearing haz-mat suits standing in the middle of the Brazos River.

It is going to take more than politics. It is going to take passion about the environment and corporate greed. Until we take back our right to clean air, clean water, and the right to control what we ingest, the Tom DeLay’s and the George W. Bush’s are going to win. Until we demand media coverage of their environmental atrocities, we lose.

Use BugMeNot.com to get user names and passwords for some articles.

Bush's failure to bring this bitterly divided nation together may be his greatest fault

Newsday endorses John Kerry, but....

Apathetic Voters

Say you were an apathetic voter. What reasons would you give?

- I'm too tired to vote after work. I just want to get home and stay there.
- It doesn't matter, my vote doesn't count anyway.
- I live in a red state and I'm a democrat, so it doesn't matter who I vote for.
- I live in a blue state and I'm a republican, so it doesn't matter who I vote for..
- The candidates don't care about my state. They are always in Pennsylvania or Florida.
- I can't tell which candidate is telling the truth. They both insist that the other is lying and I don't have time to make sense of it all.
- As usual, both candidates stink and I don't relate to anything they are talking about.
- I don't like their nasty smear advertising. I don't know who to believe.
- The electoral college is ridiculous. Why are candidates campaigning in states with such a few electoral votes and we in a state with a lot of electoral votes are being ignored? We have needs too.
- They had 4 years to fix the voting system and they blew it.
- It's all crooked. The elections are rigged. Who cares?
- When they get rid of the electoral college, I'll vote. My vote doesn't count anyway.
- What's the electoral college?
- They should have the election on a weekend like in other countries. More people would vote.


******

All these reasons are valid. First of all, the electoral college, which was started so that candidates wouldn't ignore less populated states has completely backfired. Larger states with more taxpayers haven't seen many advertisements or seen a candidate in a rally.

The electoral college makes voters feel disenfranchised. For instance if I want to vote for a Democrat and I live in a red state and the weather is lousy, I may not bother to go to the polls after work.

There is no truth in advertising when it comes to political ads. It's down to a "he said, he said" campaign and the media is only playing up the lies rather than exposing the lies. The media isn't using the airwaves fairly. The FCC is run by a partisan republican operative and the best interest of the American citizens comes after partisan politics.

The media is always talking about polls and the polls are always changing. There must be something wrong with the polls. How can a thousand or so people really reflect the national sentiment? I don't believe it.

The electoral college needs to go. The polls should be run by the people and not by politicians. Why are partisan politicians having a say in election issues? In each state, there should be a non-partisan board whose main concern is making sure that all the votes are counted and that all votes count. The whole nation should use the same methods of voting. More citizens should be encouraged to get involved in the election process.

Why is election day on a Tuesday? More people are off from work on Sunday than Tuesday. In Europe, the reason more people vote is because elections are held on weekends. Makes sense.

People are ill informed. It takes a lot of work as many of us here know to find out the truth about a candidate. Reporters and journalists don't do the research. How many times have I discovered something or another blogger has discovered something that didn't even make the mass media for weeks, or ever? The media is of no use to anyone who doesn't have time to research the candidates. The American people are fooled by the so called 24 hour news stations. They are partisan corporate shills who occasionally give a voice to the opposing side just for show.

It's time for those of us who do give a shit, to hold our states accountable for the electoral process, to work to abolish the electoral college and to actively push for truth in advertising for all political advertising whether it comes from the candidates, the parties and 527's. I'm sure a volunteer task force would be glad to review all advertisements for accuracy before they are allowed to go on the air. Free speech is one thing, but lies and misleading information should not be tolerated when it comes to something as important as a national election.

Election reform should start now.
I urge everyone to start writing letters and urge the media to listen to us, do their jobs and help the American people win the country back.

**************

With Jeb Bush as governor, and voting machine maker Diebold contributing to the Republican party, this might be what voting is like across Florida on Nov 2:
Watch this video in Quicktime or Windows Media
Take action now.

Republicans attempt to confuse voters in Democratic-leaning areas of Philadelphia by requesting the city relocate 63 polling places- 53 of which are in Black and Latino neighborhoods. Denied

We're sorry the Republicans threw away all the Democrat's voter registrations but it's too late to do anything about it. Oh well!

Not only is Bush wrong, most of his supporters are too, "According to the study, 75 percent Bush supporters also believe 'Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda.'

A team of international observers who are monitoring the November 2 elections is calling for major reforms in the U.S. electoral process to promote confidence in that each voting system. But most Americans will probably not even find out about this because the mass media won't report it.

What kind of democracy do we live in where American citizens are refused the right to see their president speak unless they declare support for him? Is this a democracy or a dictatorship?

What kind of democracy do we live in where concerned citizens for clean air are treated like terrorists?

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia



I would personally like to congratulate the Rude Pundit on his most recent and absolutely coolest recognition and achievement. His blog has been banned from the computers at the apparently tight assed Seminole County Library, right here in the Sunshine/Voters Shenanigans, State of Florida.
I curtsy and tip my southern liberal bonnet to his Rudeness!

Blessed Are The Peacemakers

When I first heard Jim Wallis on the radio, I was instantly cheered up, as his theology is exactly the theology I was taught (and it resonated in my heart) in the Catholic Seminary (where they train priests). I'm not a holy roller. I'm an intellectual elitist (heh) and agnostic wh0 happens to think that Jesus Christ was awesome.

Excerpt From Jim Wallis, Liberal Christian, of Sojourners:

Confessing Christ in a World of Violence
In this time of crisis, we need a new confession of Christ.

1. Jesus Christ, as attested in Holy Scripture, knows no national boundaries. Those who confess his name are found throughout the earth. Our allegiance to Christ takes priority over national identity. Whenever Christianity compromises with empire, the gospel of Christ is discredited.

We reject the false teaching that any nation-state can ever be described with the words, "the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it." These words, used in scripture, apply only to Christ. No political or religious leader has the right to twist them in the service of war.

2. Christ commits Christians to a strong presumption against war. The wanton destructiveness of modern warfare strengthens this obligation. Standing in the shadow of the Cross, Christians have a responsibility to count the cost, speak out for the victims, and explore every alternative before a nation goes to war. We are committed to international cooperation rather than unilateral policies.

We reject the false teaching that a war on terrorism takes precedence over ethical and legal norms. Some things ought never be done - torture, the deliberate bombing of civilians, the use of indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction - regardless of the consequences.

3. Christ commands us to see not only the splinter in our adversary's eye, but also the beam in our own. The distinction between good and evil does not run between one nation and another, or one group and another. It runs straight through every human heart.

We reject the false teaching that America is a "Christian nation," representing only virtue, while its adversaries are nothing but vicious. We reject the belief that America has nothing to repent of, even as we reject that it represents most of the world's evil. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).

4. Christ shows us that enemy-love is the heart of the gospel. While we were yet enemies, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8, 10). We are to show love to our enemies even as we believe God in Christ has shown love to us and the whole world. Enemy-love does not mean capitulating to hostile agendas or domination. It does mean refusing to demonize any human being created in God's image.

We reject the false teaching that any human being can be defined as outside the law's protection. We reject the demonization of perceived enemies, which only paves the way to abuse; and we reject the mistreatment of prisoners, regardless of supposed benefits to their captors.

5. Christ teaches us that humility is the virtue befitting forgiven sinners. It tempers all political disagreements, and it allows that our own political perceptions, in a complex world, may be wrong.

We reject the false teaching that those who are not for the United States politically are against it or that those who fundamentally question American policies must be with the "evil-doers." Such crude distinctions, especially when used by Christians, are expressions of the Manichaean heresy, in which the world is divided into forces of absolute good and absolute evil.

The Lord Jesus Christ is either authoritative for Christians, or he is not. His Lordship cannot be set aside by any earthly power. His words may not be distorted for propagandistic purposes. No nation-state may usurp the place of God.

We believe that acknowledging these truths is indispensable for followers of Christ. We urge them to remember these principles in making their decisions as citizens. Peacemaking is central to our vocation in a troubled world where Christ is Lord.

Here's the Sermon on the Mount, printed for your enjoyment, your enlightenment or your information if you are unfamiliar with Jesus Christ. And yes, he was a liberal and probably would be labeled a socialist if he came back today. And yes, most conservative christians and catholics would not recognize him.

Here's the Christian Coalition Voter Guide.

UPDATE: Read the list of theologians who signed this.

Check out this site EnjoyTheDraft.com
Send the link to kids or to people who have kids.

Kerry in September 2002

Ok. I found Kerry's speech to the Senate from September 2002.
Excerpt:

When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security and that of our allies in the Persian Gulf region. I will vote yes because I believe it is the best way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. And the administration, I believe, is now committed to a recognition that war must be the last option to address this threat, not the first, and that we must act in concert with allies around the globe to make the world's case against Saddam Hussein.

As the President made clear earlier this week, "Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable." It means "America speaks with one voice."

Let me be clear, the vote I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies.

In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days--to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out.

If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent--and I emphasize "imminent"--threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs.

Read the whole thing here.

Fear factor

I think the terrorists know that if they strike in the US before the next election, that the election will probably go to bush or bush will declare a police state and cancel the elections.
The rethugs are using the fear factor warning of a terror attack before the election. If the terrorists do support kerry, then they won't strike. This could be a problem. oy.

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We had 4 stinking years to get the election process straightened out and made legitimate. Why didn't it happen? I'll tell you why. Because the bad guys had control of the WH, the senate and the congress. The election process should be non partisan and politicians should have absolutely nothing to do with it. Not the governors, not the federal government. It should be a process handled by the PEOPLE. People with no political agenda or ties to any politician. Period. Foreign Observers See Problems in Election

Dog Poo

Triumph The Insult Comic Dog visits the after debate spin room and really gives us all the poop. heh. View the video here.

Here are some excerpts:

Triumph asks: "You have no shame... Here's what I want to know. What if the president took a dump on the stage tonight, how would you spin it?"
Answer: It would be hard to spin
Triumph: Oh you could do it. You'd say that the president looked very comfortable up there.

Triumph to another spinner: Can you spin a woman into thinking that you don't look gross in the shower?

Triumph to Greta Van Susteren: Can I get Bill O'Reilly's cell phone number? C'mon I'll bring the vibrator.

And to some other woman: A lot of people think he should appeal more to women because he's a douche. [bush] ....Have a safe trip back to Stepford.

To Karl Rove: You're bush's brains, KKKarl. I was expecting a much smaller man.

To Ralph Reed.: I don't take questions from dogs.
Triumph: Oh you'll take it bitch.
If you are against gay rights, you ought to take that pole out of your ass!

Some other guy to Triumph: You're insulting me and you got a hand up your butt.
Triumph: And you don't?

Is he gay?

An astute reader sent me a link to a village voice article today showing a very compassionate side of bush.. maybe a bit too compassionate...

He [preznit] said, 'If it's OK with you, we'll take care of the prayer right now. Would you pray with me?' I told him yes, and he turned to the staff that remained in the office and hand-motioned the folks to step back or leave. He said, 'Bruce and I would like some private time for a prayer.'

"As they left, he turned back to me and took my hands in his. I was prepared to do a traditional prayer stance, standing with each other with heads bowed. Instead, he reached for my head with his right hand and, pulling gently forward, he placed my head on his shoulder.
...With his left arm on my midback, he pulled me to him in a prayerful embrace. He started to pray softly. I started to cry... My body shook a bit as I cried, and he just held tighter. "

This made me wince (oh and the reader sent a link to a picture of this handsome man bush was hugging) and then it made me think of an article from January where bush met a man named Scott in Canada and compared him to Scott McClellan:

"Well, you got a pretty face," he told the surprised Mr. Reid. He wasn't done. "You got a pretty face," he said again. "You're a good-looking guy. Better looking than my Scott anyway."

Betty Bowers claims bush uses the word fabulous too much for a man.

I dunno. How about some homosexuals pipe in here and give your opinion on this.

posted by Blondesense

A Very Special Day

Today marks the anniversary of one of the best decisions I ever made!
One year ago today, I received the following email. At that time I was writing op-ed pieces for another website.

"I'm 80 years old and a doctrinaire liberal who has never voted for a Republican for an important office and never will. I have also read just about everybody and heard just about every argument.

I am writing to say that you, while correct in almost everything you say, are always correct at the top of your voice. An occasional modulation would make your words more convincing. See Paul Krugman, E. J. Dionne, and Molly Ivins among others.

In conclusion, I wouldn't bother writing this if I didn't think you had something to say. I also believe that you have the talent necessary to say it more calmly and convincingly."

I'll tell you the sender's name in a minute. First I have to tell you that, the person who sent that email has become one of the most precious and wonderful friends I have never truly met. When I received the message I came very close to simply deleting it and moving on. For some reason though, I didn't delete it and instead I wrote back to the sender thanking them for the constructive criticism. I have no doubt that responding to that email was one of the best decisions of my life.

This person and I began to exchange emails on a regular basis. A magical friendship grew. He has taught me more about music and literature than I could have ever imagined. Last Christmas we exchanged gifts. He burned some wonderful cd's for me. These cd's were full of beautiful classic music, jazz, blues, vocals, you name it. I sent him a seashell since we had both expressed our deep love for the beach and the ocean.

This past year we have laughed and cried together via email. I have turned to him for advice more than once and he's never steered me wrong. I often refer to him as my fairy godfather because my own father wasn't much of a father and the only grandfather I ever knew wasn't much of a grandfather. As of one year ago today, I finally have a gentleman in my life who can share the wisdom of experience with me. I have come to admire this gentleman more than I can tell you. Many of you have read his comments at this site.

Happy One-Year-Friendship Anniversary, Mr. Richard Elliott. (she said smiling)
I am thinking about how much this year has meant to me and how much you have enriched my life. As I said, we have laughed and cried together but the laughs were more fun and the tears were less frequent because we shared them as friends. How could I ever thank you for being there for me when I needed wisdom and advice. Your shoulder was so comfortable to lean on. You know that I would truly be lost without you. You have added such beauty to my life. Thank you for sharing so very much with me.

Until next year when we celebrate our second friendship anniversary, I will continue to send you my love and my admiration via this wonderful world of cyberspace.

Love,
patricia

This is very interesting

From True Torah Jews at JewsAgainstZionism.com

They are taking out an ad in this Sunday's Washington Times with the following (this is an excerpt):

TRADITIONAL JEWS APPALLED BY CONNECTION TO ISRAEL
Traditional Jews are much troubled by the increasing frequency of references to Jewry and their supposed connection to Israel in political and media rhetoric such as was heard at the recent political conventions. Politicians seem to feel that this topic is of great interest to all American Jews and that to win the Jewish popular vote they must come out in favor of the Zionist state. Focusing on this issue only serves to inflame anti-Semitism, an historically essential component to the advancement of Zionism, while endangering traditional Jews who, as a result of the public,s mistaken belief that all Jews are Zionists, are wrongly and unfairly blamed for the deplorable actions of the secular state of Israel.

...

Zionism, by advocating a political and military end to the Jewish exile, denies the very essence of our Diaspora existence. We are in exile by Divine Decree and may emerge from exile solely via Divine Redemption. All human efforts to alter a metaphysical reality are doomed to end in failure and bloodshed. History has clearly borne out this teaching.

I sure agree with the rabbi when he says that "human efforts to alter metaphysical reality are doomed... " Absolutely right. This is where I go off on a rant about the christian zionists in this country. They are deliberately trying to fulfill a perceived prophecy about armageddon. They think they know what god has planned and when he plans to do it. This is so wrong in so many ways. It's dangerous and when it mixes with politics, oh baby.

It goes on and explains how Zionism is not Judaism. I don't know about all of the article because I'm not Jewish, but I would be interested as a concerned world citizen how this sits with American Jews. Most of the Jews I meet, except for the really conservative ones which are few and far between in NY, think that Ariel Sharon is out of control. ... But, Read the rest

Previous rants on christian zionists:

The Covert Kingdom:Christian Reconstructionists
Blonde Faith:Catholic church condemns anti-zionism
Bush Admin Consults with Zionist Apocalyptic Christians!

Kerry on a wild goose chase?

What's wrong with CNN? They are whining on and on about John Kerry who went hunting today. They said he is pretending that he won't take away gun rights. If John Kerry is really a hunter, I can't imagine that he would try to stifle hunting. Canada geese are a nuisance. As much as I thinking hunting in this day and age is ridiculous, if hunters rid us of pests, I don't mind that much. Ohh what a horrible thing for me to say. I must not be a liberal at all.

And here is Cheney regarding the hunting trip (and cheney is pissed cause he would rather go out and shoot birds than go to rallies):

Cheney said Kerry's new camouflage jacket was "an October disguise - an effort he's making to hide the fact that he votes against gun owner rights at every turn."

Kerry is not against gun owner rights. He is for the assault weapons ban. Bush said he was for the assault weapons ban too. Who uses assault weapons to go hunting? Who needs an assault weapon for self defense? Kerry's voting recond on gun rights was not against people owning guns. He just wanted assault weapons off the streets and a waiting period for new gun owners. I don't have a problem with that at all. What the hell is the matter with cheney?

"My fellow sportsmen, this cover-up isn't going to work," Cheney said, speaking to supporters in a well-to-do Toledo suburb that borders the Ohio-Michigan state line. "The Second Amendment is more than just a photo opportunity."

WTF? But didn't cheney go faux hunting birds last year with scalia? Wouldn't real hunters be insulted that cheney considers himself a hunter?

Kerry has denied claims that he wants to "take away" guns.
Cheney pointed out that Kerry bought a new jacket for the hunting trip in Youngstown.
"Which did make me wonder how regularly he does go goose hunting," the vice president said with a smirk.

Boy is he grasping at straws. That was the best slam, he could come up with? Maybe Kerry didn't have his fucking hunting jacket with him. And so what if he never went goose hunting before?

And why the hell is this crap making the news?
There has got to be a new law made, and I am not really a person who likes a lot of laws, but we need a new law. The new law is this:
Candidates for the highest office in our country are not allowed to lie about their opponent, nor are they allowed to mislead or exaggerate. Candidates must stick to what they will do , what they have done and stick with facts. Period.

If a company wants to market and advertise a product, there are laws in place that say that the advertising must not be misleading. They are called to task for misleading the public about their product. They have ethics in advertising! How come presidential candidates are not called to task or just simply outlawed from misleading about what they have done or what their opponents have done?

Ridge and Rice Politicize Security

From the Daily Misleader

"Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge told reporters, "we don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security."1 But a new analysis by the Associated Press reveals that the travel schedule of Ridge and other top DHS officials are influenced by political considerations.

According to the report, in the past seven months nearly three-fifths of Ridge's travel has been to "the 17 states considered the most hotly contested in the presidential election."2 In the same time period, 22 senior officials "did nearly half their public events in those 17 states."3 Sue Mencer, who heads the Office of Domestic Preparedness for DHS, recently traveled to Ohio - a key battleground state - "to deliver a grant that had been awarded weeks earlier."4

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has also "traveled across the country making speeches in key battleground states, including Oregon, Washington, North Carolina and Ohio."5 In the next few days "she also plans speeches in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida."6 White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan denied the appearances were politically motivated.7 "

(The numbers in the piece refer to sources which can be found at the web site)

The Monster Slash

by pissed off patricia

Look at this. One of my environmentalist friend sent me the link. Turn up your speakers and watch The Monster Slash ( to the tune of the Monster Mash) And just like Halloween, it's scary!

Bitchin' With Three Good Reasons

by pissed off patricia

The president of the United States denied that he once stated that the whereabouts and capture of the man who planned the most dastardly of all attacks on the United States, which resulted in the deaths of 3000 people, was unimportant. Even though his remarks to the contrary were caught on film, he did not apologize for his error. But, the media only stirred, turned over, and went back to sleep. The vice president says that he never mentioned a connection between 9-11 and Iraq and the media peacefully slept on. Mrs. Kerry forgot that Laura bush was once a school teacher. Even though Mrs. Kerry apologized for her error, the media is up and running with their hair on fire.

******

The new bush commercial about the little girl who emotionally shut down after her mother died during the 9-11 attack is done in such a way that it suggests that bush has the ability to heal with the old TV evangelistic laying-on-of-hands sham. The commercial says that when bush hugged the little girl, she began to finally show emotions and she cried. We see a picture of bush hugging her and he has this "look what the terrorist did to this child" look on his face. The little girl says bush asked her if she was okay and the insinuation is that she is a changed child due to bush's words and touch. Then it fades to a profile of bush's face and the impression is that he's bowing his head in prayer. In my opinion that little girl's tragedy is being used for political purposes. The widow in the new Kerry commercial, Kristen, is an adult and she endorses Kerry. Two very different commercials aimed at two very different audiences.

******
The members of the House and Senate are guaranteed flu shots because they are exposed to the public a lot. I don't believe they are the only ones who have a job that exposes them to the public, do you? Yesterday one of the idiots on Fox News stated that they too had been given the option for flu shots if they so desired, regardless of age etc. So basically the chosen get the shots and the not so chosen can take their chances. One state is holding a lottery to see who is lucky enough to get the shot. Yesterday bush said that Kerry's health care plan would result in "rationing". "Rationing" was not the best choice of words for him to use in relation to health care, especially in light of this situation with the flu shots. It reminded me of another time recently when he made another statement using ill chosen words. During one of the debates he said that he tried to keep his daughters on a leash. He said this even as visions of Ms. England with the abused prisoner on a dog leash still danced in our heads. He's either incompetent, insensitive, stupid, or he's just so brazen and cocky that he doesn't feel he has to choose his words wisely and carefully. You pick.

What I Heard on C-SPAN This Morning

by pissed off patricia

The scoop among some white house correspondents is that if bush wins a second term, Condi, Ashcroft and Powell are out. Powell, we pretty much expected to go. Condi wants out and because not everyone is happy with the job she has done. Ashcroft, because some Republicans on the hill believe he had done lots of damage due to his handling of the Patriot Act, Immigration etc. So if there would be anything we could look forward to during a bush second term, it would be the exit of the head spear carrier for the Justice Department. If it's true, at least it would be a bone tossed our way.

They steered the plane directly into the building?

Forget about Kerry, forget about everything bush says about Kerry. Just remember 9/11. You know exactly what you were doing and how you felt when the news hit. You remember that day very clearly. The president doesn't.

From The Center for Cooperative Research Time Line

8:50am: CIA Director Tenet is told of the first WTC crash while he is eating breakfast with his mentor, former Senator David Boren. Boren says Tenet is told that the WTC has been attacked by an airplane: “I was struck by the fact that [the messenger] used the word attacked.” Tenet then hands a cell phone back to an aide and says to Boren, “You know, this has bin Laden's fingerprints all over it.” [ ABC, 9/14/02 ] Another account has Tenet saying into the phone, “They steered the plane directly into the building?” Then he says to Boren, “That looks like Bin Laden.” In a reference to recently arrested Zacarias Moussaoui, he muses out loud, “I wonder if this has something to do with the guy who trained for a pilot's license.” [ Stern, 8/13/03 ]Why is Bush supposedly under the impression the crash was an accident well after Tenet has been told it was an attack? Does Tenet try to communicate with Bush at this time?

8:55-9:00am: Just after Bush arrives at Booker Elementary School and is briefly told of the WTC crash, he is whisked into a holding room and updated on the situation via telephone by National Security Advisor Rice. [ Christian Science Monitor, 9/17/01 ,Time, 9/12/01 ] Rice later claims, “He said, what a terrible, it sounds like a terrible accident. Keep me informed.” [ ABC News, 9/11/02 ]

School principal Gwen Tose-Rigell is then summoned to a room to talk with the President: “He said a commercial plane has hit the World Trade Center, and we're going to go ahead and go on, we're going on to do the reading thing anyway.” [ AP, 8/19/02 (D) ] One local reporter notes that at this point, “He could and arguably should have left Emma E. Booker Elementary School immediately, gotten onto Air Force One and left Sarasota without a moment's delay.” [ Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/12/01 (B) ]

Why doesn't he? Note that CIA Director Tenet has already been told it was terrorism and Bush certainly should have been told by Rice of the three known hijackings at this time, if he hasn't been told already. How could Bush continue to think there is only a single-plane accident?
-----------

Bush later makes the following statement: “And I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower—the TV was obviously on, and I use to fly myself, and I said, ‘There's one terrible pilot.’ And I said, ‘It must have been a horrible accident.’ But I was whisked off there—I didn't have much time to think about it.” [ CNN, 12/4/01 ] He has repeated the story on other occasions. [ White House, 1/5/02 ,CBS, 9/11/02 ] However, it has been noted that Bush doesn't have access to a television until 15 or so minutes later. [ Washington Times, 10/7/02 ]

A Boston Herald article later says, “Think about that. Bush's remark implies he saw the first plane hit the tower. But we all know that video of the first plane hitting did not surface until the next day. Could Bush have meant he saw the second plane hit—which many Americans witnessed? No, because he said that he was in the classroom when Card whispered in his ear that a second plane hit.” The article points out that Bush had told the story more than once, and asks, “How could the commander-in-chief have seen the plane fly into the first building—as it happened?” [ Boston Herald, 10/22/02 ] A Bush spokesman later calls Bush's comments “just a mistaken recollection.” [ Wall Street Journal 3/22/04 ]

Mistaken recollection, indeed. Twice, he mistakenly recollected the same story and in public. I clearly remember the morning of 9/11 and the absolute terror we New Yorkers were feeling. I clearly remember wondering what the president was doing. It was reported on television shortly after the second plane hit that he was in Sarasota at a reading photo op and would give a statement after he was finished. I clearly remember thinking, WTF.

Either bush is mentally incompetant and thus unable to fulfill his duty as president of the United States or his people knew exactly what was happening and were trying to think of what they were going to say. Or both.

By the way, when Richard Clarke was allowed to be on the speaker phone, in the WH situation room after being continually cut off by Dick Cheney, Lynne Cheney insisted it be turned down because it was interrupting her viewing of CNN.

Fascist Catholics Try to Dupe The Vatican But Fail

Grrrrr. Of course most of the catholics who read this blog knew that all the anti-Kerry catholic news of late was a crock of shit. We knew that it was ridiculous for the catholic institution to treat Kerry like a heretic for supporting the pro-choice platform and would be excommunicated along with those who vote for him. The Vatican says it was duped on the Kerry stance by right wing conservative hateful catholics who support bush. Even the Vatican PR machine released a statement previously that catholics may vote for a pro-choice candidate if they believe that the other candidate is evil (I'm paraphrasing).

Just like the evil republicans have made the wonderful and ethical word "liberal" into a slur, they have made the idea of "pro-choice" into a synonym for "pro-abortion".

Let me clear something up right now: If a woman is faced with a choice when she finds that she is pregnant, she is most likely to choose life. That is a choice too. Just because I support the pro-choice platform, doesn't mean that I am performing, promoting, condoning or having abortions. It's a decision between a woman and her doctor. I was pregnant and I know what a grueling ordeal it is. Men don't know, so I don't want to hear their opinions.

This whole topic falls under 2 distinct characteristics of fascism:
# 8. Religion and Government are Intertwined -- Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

# 5. Rampant Sexism -- The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and antigay legislation and national policy.

And of course all the damage has been done since CNN and other 24 hour news outlets have given too much time to the bogus topic that the Vatican disapproves of John Kerry.

# 6. Controlled Mass Media -- Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or through sympathetic media spokespeople and executives.

enough said.

Election Theft

"The Kerry campaign has recount office space in every battleground state, with plans so detailed they include the number of staplers and coffee machines needed to mount legal challenges."

And we thought that the dems were incapable of fighting back.

Kerry isn't taking any rethuglican bullshit this time.

UPDATE: Good articles on how the fascists are trying to steal the election:

1. New investigation uncovers more racism, voter intimidation and faulty poll machines -Sunday Herald
2. The Art of Stealing Elections -Boston Globe
3. New Report Shows Millions of Eligible Voters May Be Turned Away on Election Day -Common Dreams
   
4. Republicans Fail in Bid to Move 63 Mostly Black Polling Places -Philadelphia Inquirer
5. Republicans Asks Alabama Resident to Vote in Florida -Alabama Register
   
   

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

Emotional Preparedness

Boy, there's a lot riding on these next few days, isn't there?

This reminds me of last month when the hurricanes were forming in the Atlantic and we would hold our breath each time the projected path was to be shown on the Weather Channel. One time it would look like we might take a direct hit and the next time the projected path would move just enough that we thought we might be spared. The anxiety level ebbed and flowed. In many ways it was a great deal like watching the polls now. The polls don't mean much because there is so much room for error, and that's pretty much the way it was as we watched the forecast paths for the hurricanes. Any one report didn't mean much until the storms got closer and then each report mattered a great deal. But the bottom line was that all you could do was to prepare for the worst as you repeated to yourself over and over, better safe than sorry. That's the way I'm approaching this election. I'm trying to prepare myself just in case bush should win. Better mentally safe than sorry.

As hurricane Jeanne approached and I was trying to secure as many of our belongings as possible before leaving our, already Hurricane Frances-damaged home, I kept telling myself the reward would be to find out later that everything I was doing was unnecessary. As I was jamming so many precious things, just about everything that we owned, into big black plastic bags, I kept thinking, I hope I'm doing this for nothing. Even as tired as I was that Thursday night, I kept hoping that I would be just as tired another night as I unpacked our undamaged things.

Lately I have been jamming all my fragile emotions and my optimism into the mental equivalent of big black plastic bags, and hopefully after the election is over I can revisit these bags and retrieve the undamaged contents. Maybe after the election I can revisit my emotions and feel the same elation that I felt upon returning home after Jeanne had passed. The elation I felt when we came back to our home and discovered that it was almost exactly as we had left it is indescribable. We walked in the door and there were all the black bags sitting obediently, just as I had left them. It was almost as if they had planned a grand party for us. They were silently waiting there in the dark for the moment we would open the front door and walk in. They were waiting to see our anxious faces before they would in unison call out, Surprise! and Welcome Home! They planned well.

That's exactly the way I want to feel after the election. I want those black bags that are protecting my emotions to be waiting for me with their contents intact. I want to open that door and see that all my mental preparations were unnecessary. I want to be able to smile as I retrieve and restore my optimistic hope to its proper place in my life. But, because I am a cautious soul, for now I'm bagging my emotions. Better safe than sorry.

Bitchin' About the Baseball Game Last Night

by pissed off patricia


Okay, here ya go.
The Boston Red Socks played the New York Yankees.
Boston won.
The Democrats held their convention in Boston.
The Republicans held their convention in New York.
Humm, is this an omen?
Let's hope!

America banned by Walmart

Walmart will not be selling the best selling, run away hit, 'America' by Jon Stewart because there is a picture of US Supreme court judges in the nude. Walmart feels that it's customers will not be comfortable with this. Actually it's a photo of nine naked, aged bodies, each with the superimposed head of a U.S. Supreme Court justice.There are cutouts of the justices's robes and a caption asking readers to "restore their dignity by matching each justice with his or her respective robe. And that is disgusting because?

Glad this story is making the news. This should send book sales sky rocketing. The fascists are really grasping at straws now aren't they?

Stupidest thing I read all day

Pat Buchanan: Kerry's outing of Cheney's daughter may prove a self-inflicted wounds that costs him the presidency of the United States.

And this maroon is an MSNBC anal-yst. He is sure up on all the news.

Creationism Trumps Science

Back in March, I wrote about this ridiculousness. A Colorado River guide said:
"For years, as a Colorado river guide, I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary timescale of millions of years. Then I met the Lord. Now I have a different view of the canyon, which according to a biblical timescale can't possibly be more than a few thousand years old." Yes, she found the Lard and traded in her brains.

They were selling a creationist book about how the Grand Canyon was formed in the National Park. This outrage made the American Geological Institute and seven scientific bodies flood the National Park Service with complaints calling for the book to be removed from the shop.

Now a new report says, "Despite telling members of Congress and the public that the legality and appropriateness of the National Park Service offering a creationist book for sale at Grand Canyon museums and bookstores was “under review at the national level by several offices,” no such review took place, according to materials obtained by PEER under the Freedom of Information Act. Instead, the real agency position was expressed by NPS spokesperson Elaine Sevy as quoted in the Baptist Press News: “Now that the book has become quite popular, we don’t want to remove it.” And the Bush Administration has decided that it will stand by its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces.

So the National Park Service AND Bush are pandering to the fundies in a big way. They are rewriting geology now. Earlier today, the news I posted was that democrats are too darn educated to vote republican. It seems that they don't really give a shit and they will just spit in the faces of scientists and sane people.

Bitchin' and More Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

The truth/news today leaves one speechless.

October Surprise

"Meanwhile, the casualties mount. Reports the BBC : “An American air raid on the Iraqi city of Fallujah has killed six members of the same family. U.S. planes fired two rockets into the house of a couple and their four children early on Wednesday.”

"It’s backfiring. Says the Monitor : “The result is new fear that is tearing at family social fabric, which Iraqis say has only hardened attitudes against American efforts.” But what’s a few dead families if it helps get Bush re-elected?"

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

Robertson: I warned Bush on Iraq casualties

President's response: 'We're not going to have any'

This is such a bizarre article that I don't know where to begin with it, so please, read it for yourself. Be sure to read right down to the last line.

Republicans: Anti-Intellectual

"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans...unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing." -Karl Rove

Explains why most readers of this blog are not voting like Republicans. You're all just too darn 'edumacated'.

Read Blue States Smart - Red States Dumb

NYC Students Get Lucky

Read article Students Binge on Sex

Among New York City High schoolers it is found that
48% have had sex.
17% have had 4 or more partners
24% did not use a condom or birth control the last time they had sex.

Condoms are available at NYC schools, but students have to ask for them. They are not distributed. No demonstrations of how to properly use a condom are being conducted since the NYC Board of Ed was told that sex ed may encourage more sexual activity.

********

There are 180 Catholic Bishops in the U.S. who have NOT declared that Kerry supporters may not receive communion. We have only heard from a very few. The corporate media that supports bush has chosen to only report those who favor the president. CNN and that ilk will still be reporting this as if it were a controversy. It is not, but the bush fascist spin machine will be sure to keep American catholics believing it's a sin to vote for Kerry.

"The Roman Catholic Church's official news service quoted an unnamed Vatican official on Tuesday as saying John Kerry was "not a heretic" for his stance on abortion rights.... Mr. Kerry was not about to be excommunicated because "you can incur excommunication" automatically "only if you procure or perform an abortion." NY Times

Danger of American Fascism

I was rather surprised/naive that America is turning fascist so fast. I thought it would take longer. There were always fascists ready at the helm, but I was brought up in characteristic 1 of a fascist society: Powerful and Continuing Nationalism: this is the greatest country in the world and nowhere else in the world can you enjoy such freedom and opportunity. I didn't think that fascists would get the upper hand because we were a "democracy" and enlightened after World War II. Two other characteristics of a fascist society are what clinched it; what made it happen right under our noses: Number 14: Fraudulent Elections and Number 6: Controlled Mass Media. My belief is that without such complicit mass media, the elections of 2001 wouldn't have turned out as they did and we wouldn't have been led into an imperialistic war led by neocons, a new way to say "fascist pigs".

See if you can find more of the characteristics of fascism in the following article from a 1944 NY Times article about the Danger of American Fascism. (Here's a link to the 14 characteristics of Fascism to refresh your memory and a link to a more in depth look at these characteristics today. )

Excerpts From:
The Danger of American Fascism
By Henry A. Wallace
The New York Times
From Henry A. Wallace, Democracy Reborn (New York, 1944), edited by Russell Lord, p. 259.

Sunday 09 April 1944

On returning from my trip to the West in February, I received a request from The New York Times to write a piece answering the following questions:

What is a fascist?
How many fascists have we?
How dangerous are they?

A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are directed, may be money or power; may be a race or a class; may be a military, clique or an economic group; or may be a culture, religion, or a political party.

The perfect type of fascist throughout recent centuries has been the Prussian Junker, who developed such hatred for other races and such allegiance to a military clique as to make him willing at all times to engage in any degree of deceit and violence necessary to place his culture and race astride the world. In every big nation of the world are at least a few people who have the fascist temperament. Every Jew-baiter, every Catholic hater, is a fascist at heart. The hoodlums who have been desecrating churches, cathedrals and synagogues in some of our larger cities are ripe material for fascist leadership.

The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned. The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.

If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. Most American fascists are enthusiastically supporting the war effort. They are doing this even in those cases where they hope to have profitable connections with German chemical firms after the war ends. They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.

American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.

The European brand of fascism will probably present its most serious postwar threat to us via Latin America. The effect of the war has been to raise the cost of living in most Latin American countries much faster than the wages of labor. The fascists in most Latin American countries tell the people that the reason their wages will not buy as much in the way of goods is because of Yankee imperialism. The fascists in Latin America learn to speak and act like natives. Our chemical and other manufacturing concerns are all too often ready to let the Germans have Latin American markets, provided the American companies can work out an arrangement which will enable them to charge high prices to the consumer inside the United States. Following this war, technology will have reached such a point that it will be possible for Germans, using South America as a base, to cause us much more difficulty in World War III than they did in World War II. The military and landowning cliques in many South American countries will find it attractive financially to work with German fascist concerns as well as expedient from the standpoint of temporary power politics.

Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat to the United States will come after the war, either via Latin America or within the United States itself.

Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after "the present unpleasantness" ceases:

The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against other religious, racial or economic groups. Likewise, many people whose patriotism is their proudest boast play Hitler's game by retailing distrust of our Allies and by giving currency to snide suspicions without foundation in fact.

The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They cultivate hate and distrust of both Britain and Russia. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

Several leaders of industry in this country who have gained a new vision of the meaning of opportunity through co-operation with government have warned the public openly that there are some selfish groups in industry who are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage. We all know the part that the cartels played in bringing Hitler to power, and the rule the giant German trusts have played in Nazi conquests. Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.

It has been claimed at times that our modern age of technology facilitates dictatorship. What we must understand is that the industries, processes, and inventions created by modern science can be used either to subjugate or liberate. The choice is up to us. The myth of fascist efficiency has deluded many people. It was Mussolini's vaunted claim that he "made the trains run on time." In the end, however, he brought to the Italian people impoverishment and defeat. It was Hitler's claim that he eliminated all unemployment in Germany. Neither is there unemployment in a prison camp.

Democracy to crush fascism internally must demonstrate its capacity to "make the trains run on time." It must develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels. As long as scientific research and inventive ingenuity outran our ability to devise social mechanisms to raise the living standards of the people, we may expect the liberal potential of the United States to increase. If this liberal potential is properly channeled, we may expect the area of freedom of the United States to increase. The problem is to spend up our rate of social invention in the service of the welfare of all the people.

The worldwide, agelong struggle between fascism and democracy will not stop when the fighting ends in Germany and Japan. Democracy can win the peace only if it does two things:

Speeds up the rate of political and economic inventions so that both production and, especially, distribution can match in their power and practical effect on the daily life of the common man the immense and growing volume of scientific research, mechanical invention and management technique. Vivifies with the greatest intensity the spiritual processes which are both the foundation and the very essence of democracy.

The moral and spiritual aspects of both personal and international relationships have a practical bearing which so-called practical men deny. This dullness of vision regarding the importance of the general welfare to the individual is the measure of the failure of our schools and churches to teach the spiritual significance of genuine democracy. Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions, we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war both in the United States and in the world.

Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes.

It should also be evident that exhibitions of the native brand of fascism are not confined to any single section, class or religion. Happily, it can be said that as yet fascism has not captured a predominant place in the outlook of any American section, class or religion. It may be encountered in Wall Street, Main Street or Tobacco Road. Some even suspect that they can detect incipient traces of it along the Potomac. It is an infectious disease, and we must all be on our guard against intolerance, bigotry and the pretension of invidious distinction. But if we put our trust in the common sense of common men and "with malice toward none and charity for all" go forward on the great adventure of making political, economic and social democracy a practical reality, we shall not fail.

Thanks to Truthout.org for this article

Fascist Media 101

HELP, I'M STONED, WHO SHOULD I VOTE FOR?

High Times Magazine officially supports John Kerry.

Bush Jr. spent the first half of the 80's getting wasted (perhaps on some of his father's Contra coke), and the second half letting Daddy's rich friends bail him out of failed businesses, and make him managing general partner of the Texas Rangers. Now he's our President. Last year, 700,000 people were arrested for pot in the United States, and Bush's Justice Department continued to raid state-sanctioned medical marijuana gardens at gunpoint.

John Kerry has promised to end the raids on medical marijuana gardens, immediately, and will have a policy towards marijuana and other drugs that makes sense. The alternative, four more years of Bush, is a continuing disaster for the rights of pot smokers (and many other Americans).

Maria vs Arnold

It seems that Maria gave Arnold the cold shoulder after his infamous speech at the RNC.

"Well, there was no sex for 14 days," Schwarzenegger told former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta in an on-stage conversation in front of 1,000 people.

"Everything comes with side effects," he said, drawing laughter from the crowd.

Sox vs Yankees Keeps Wall St Up Past Their Bedtime

It's been raining here all day. We may actually get a break from nightly 5 hour baseball games.
From CNN: "'Everybody is exhausted. People are walking around like they're zombies. I don't know if we can take much more this,' said a Boston trader, who did not want to be identified. 'And it's not just traders. Analysts, fund managers, it runs the gamut. We're all tired.'

The Sox-Yankees rivalry is a century old, with New Yorkers and Bostonians loving to hate each other's team. Lately, the early talk on Wall Street is as much about series highlights as it is about the price of oil. "

Wanna Learn More About the Muslims We Are At War With?

I knew you would.

Here's an Inventory of Iraqi Resistance Groups.
And easy and interesting read Comparing Iraq and Afghanistan
And here is what fundies think of Muslims. Disturbing as hell.

What's a conservative guy to do when his fellow conservatives say that he's "unworthy" of their support?

by pissed off patricia

From The American Conservative Magazine, November 8, 2004 issue

"Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation’s children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor: it is as if Bush sought to resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliché about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy. Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal—Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can’t be found to do it—and you have a presidency that combines imperialist Right and open-borders Left in a uniquely noxious cocktail."

and

"These sentiments mean that as long as Bush is president, we have no real allies in the world, no friends to help us dig out from the Iraq quagmire. More tragically, they mean that if terrorists succeed in striking at the United States in another 9/11-type attack, many in the world will not only think of the American victims but also of the thousands and thousands of Iraqi civilians killed and maimed by American armed forces. The hatred Bush has generated has helped immeasurably those trying to recruit anti-American terrorists—indeed his policies are the gift to terrorism that keeps on giving, as the sons and brothers of slain Iraqis think how they may eventually take their own revenge. Only the seriously deluded could fail to see that a policy so central to America’s survival as a free country as getting hold of loose nuclear materials and controlling nuclear proliferation requires the willingness of foreign countries to provide full, 100 percent co-operation. Making yourself into the world’s most hated country is not an obvious way to secure that help."

and

"This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support."

Okay, let me get this straight. Liberals don't like him and now the conservatives don't like him either. So explain to me again how he's going to win. Oh wait, I forgot about touch screen voting machines. My bad.

BushWar is Hell

This war in America between the Bush supporters and Kerry supporters is tied according to the NY Times. I would surmise that unless you are a wealthy, white, religious, kinky, homophobic male and support bush that you need more information.

For all the war supporters out there. I don't know how much more proof you need that the war in Iraq was poorly planned. This reflects poorly on the commander in chief. Knight Ridder today explains how the exit strategy was non existant at the time the war was being promoted. This is not good. According to three senior military officers, Central Command wanted 348,000 troops to attack and occupy the country. Rumsfeld offered 40,000.

Near the end of his presentation, an Army lieutenant colonel who was giving a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon's plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war, known in the planners' parlance as Phase 4-C. He was uncomfortable with his material - and for good reason.

The slide said: "To Be Provided."

If you are a parent of a teenager and support bush, are you willing to sacrifice your child for a draft in May of 2005? Are you really? Are you absolutely sure that this war is the right war? Sure, it's easy to support a war when all you have to do is hear about how great it's going and you don't even have to watch it on tv. Paul Krugman wants you to know that a draft is inevitable if bush continues with his 'crusade' mentality.

It's exactly the same when it comes to the draft. Mr. Bush's claim that we don't need any expansion in our military is patently unrealistic; it ignores the severe stress our Army is already under. And the experience in Iraq shows that pursuing his broader foreign policy doctrine - the "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive war - would require much larger military forces than we now have.

When I was listening to Air America this morning, they were wondering what is wrong with the president besides the obvious... how about that bulge under his jacket? why was his face drooping in the last debate? why is he speech getting worse and worse? why does he fall down and go boom? I wonder how many times he fell that weren't recorded by the press. this is not the man who debated Ann Richards in 1994. Do you think bush is wearing a portable defibrillator? Do you feel safe knowing that Dick Cheney is a heartbeat away from being the president?

From Americablog, let's find out more about that bill that Kerry voted for and then voted against: Bush threatened to DENY BODY ARMOR TO OUR TROOPS simply because he disagreed with some arcane loan mechanism in the bill - see for yourself, from the administration's own letter threatening the veto:

[T]he Administration strongly opposes the Senate provision that would convert a portion of this assistance to a loan mechanism. If this provision is not removed, the President's senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill .
So Bush threatened to veto the same bill he's now criticizing Kerry for not supporting.

Bitchin' but Not About This

by pissed off patricia

"With a Tear In My Eye"
I stumbled across this site this morning. Usually I sort of scan a new site that I find, and then I move on. When I began to read this, I could not stop. I doubt you'll be able to either. This is a Vietnam War Vet and he writes from his heart about so many of the things that we have heard about lately.
If you like it, why not leave a comment for the author.

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

"President Bush accused John Kerry on Monday of employing "shameless scare tactics" on Social Security and the military draft just before voters go to the polls."

Shameless? Scare tactics? But, what about this?

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney told about 350 supporters at a town-hall meeting in this Iowa city.


***

Got a friend or relative who is still undecided? You might send them a link to this site:
"94 REASONS NOT TO VOTE FOR GEORGE W. BUSH "

To Dream The American Dream

The new Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans is up 51 billionaires from last year. Corporate CEO's are really raking it in since the bushcrimefamily took over the country and gave us all those great tax cuts and handed out corporate welfare. The economy is sure growing for the rich guys in bush's base- The Have's and the Have More's as he likes to joke.

While rich people are living the American Dream, and then some, a lot of American's wages are falling or staying the same. A million more people entered the ranks of the officially impoverished in 2001. The poverty level is pretty outdated though. It lists a family of 4 who live on $18,810 or less in 2003 as poor. That's $362/week. Oh yeah? That's not poor. That's destitute. A family of four earning twice that would be poor. $36,000 would be a destitute/homeless family of 4 living in a tent next to the Meadowbrook Parkway in the bushes on Long Island.

The median income dropped last year. It's something like $43,000. That means half the people employed make less than that. I don't know where you live, but it doesn't buy much of an American Dream unless you're part of a 2 income household, you are 35 years old and still living with your parents or you just graduated from college. The share of income going to the middle class dropped last year to nearly the lowest on record. Income share from the bottom 99 percent transferred to the top 1 percent due to changes in federal tax policy from 2001 to 2003. There you go, midddle class bush lovers. He's the man. NOT. Households with incomes above $1 million will receive tax cuts averaging $123,600 in 2004, says the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That will cause their after-tax income to jump by more than 6 percent -widening the gap with those below.

Two-thirds of the American people say the American Dream is becoming harder to achieve, especially for young families, and they point to financial insecurity and poor quality public education as the most significant barriers. Of course the rich folks don't take a particular liking to public education. That's downright socialist.

There's an 11 percent increase in the number of Americans who say the government is more of a hindrance than a help. 85 percent say that local, state and federal government must work together to give people a fair shot at achieving the American Dream. The American Dream is thought of as financial security, living in freedom and having good health. Who's got that? patriot act, lost wages, health care costs rising, medicare going down the toilet Lately just trying to make ends meet for many families especially if they are not well educated, will tie them to grueling jobs and make them ill.

A very underreported story is a study by Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst conducted the study for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The study sees 406,000 U.S. jobs shifting overseas in 2004. Almost 40% of those jobs are from unionized workplaces. How very surprising. Know what else isn't surprising? Look how many US Corporate Media Outlets picked up this story. Who says that the media isn't liberal? The corporate media hates middle class Americans.

All we have to do is go back to community college and then we can learn new skills in I don't know what because no one ever says what fields will be opening up in the near future... or we can move to India or China cause that is where all our jobs are going.

To find out which companies are outsourcing jobs in your area, visit Job Tracker website. I found out that these companies in my area are outsourcing jobs by putting in my zip code. This is just a tiny sampling of companies in my area that are outsourcing jobs. Look at who they are.

AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY -NEW YORK, NY Services
DUN & BRADSTREET CORPORATION -SHORT HILLS, NJ Services
ERNST & YOUNG LLP -NEW YORK, NY Services
FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGIES INTL -NEW YORK, NY Services
INTERNATIONAL BUS MCHS CORP-ARMONK, NY Services
MCKINSEY & COMPANY INC -NEW YORK, NY Services
NORTEL NETWORKS INC -NEW YORK, NY Services
PRICELINECOM INCORPORATED -NORWALK, CT Services
TIME WARNER INC -NEW YORK, NY Communications
VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC -NEW YORK, NY Communications
ALTRIA GROUP INC -NEW YORK, NY Manufacturing
AMERICAN STANDARD COMPANIES -PISCATAWAY, NJ Manufacturing
BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB COMPANY -NEW YORK, NY Manufacturing
ETHAN ALLEN INTERIORS INC -DANBURY, CT Manufacturing
HOFFMAN/NEW YORKER INC BLOOMFIELD, NJ Manufacturing
INGERSOLL-RAND COMPANY -WOODCLIFF LAKE, NJ Manufacturing
INTERNATIONAL PAPER COMPANY -STAMFORD, CT Manufacturing
JOHNSON & JOHNSON -NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ Manufacturing
MAIDENFORM INC -BAYONNE, NJ Manufacturing
PEPSICO INC -PURCHASE, NY Manufacturing
PFIZER INC -NEW YORK, NY Manufacturing
PITNEY BOWES INC -STAMFORD, CT Manufacturing
SYMBOL TECHNOLOGIES INC -HOLTSVILLE, NY Manufacturing
XEROX CORPORATION -STAMFORD, CT Manufacturing

Sources:
Boom Time For Billionaires
National League of Cities
Investors Business daily
Job Tracker

The Curse of The Bambino

Over at Beliefnet.com, I found a page of Top Ten Curse Reversers that were tried to reverse Boston's bad luck. Here's one:

Los Angeles-based “Spiritual Psychopharmacologist” Kirpal concocted a curse-reverser that included placing live clams in a black cauldron, then drawing a bath with Dragon’s Blood Foaming Bath and Samuel Adams beer, a Boston favorite, in it. Uttering, “I invoke this in the names of Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Bobby Doerr, Cy Young, Wade Boggs and Carlton Fisk. And so it is. And so it shall be," she declared the curse reversed.

The Red Sox are fighting fighting fighting. These games are so long, I am missing out on life by being glued to the tv set. I like both the Yankees and the Red Sox. I'll root for whichever team makes the series. The Yankees vs Red Sox here in the Northeast is like a religious experience.

I'm Coming Elizabeth. It's the big one!

Oh wait, that's what the last guy I slept with told me. Never mind that title.

Here's the real title:
"We'd Rather See You Starving and Pregnant than for you to Use a Condom", Say Catholic Bishops

I saw a link to disturbing article at Jesus' General and I was just appalled at the Catholic Bishops again. Their logic defies rationality. This time Lancaster PA Catholics have boycotted an annual walk for hunger because there is a chance that perhaps maybe in some way that some of the money raised might go towards birth control. Perish the thought.

"Many Catholics in the area bowed out of the walk last year after the late Bishop Nicholas C. Dattilo had urged members of the Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg not to take part in the walk because some of the funds support family planning or the distribution of condoms, such as a program in Africa that fights the spread of AIDS," says the article in Lancaster Online.

The Catholic Bishops are hurting the Church (the "Church" in Catholic teaching means the people, not the he-man, women haters, hierarchy or the building). I thought that those days were over, but I suppose when the bishops saw how much attention the fundie churches were getting from the preznit, that they decided to jump on the hate-your-neighbor bandwagon and go back in time 50 years.

In 1964, the second vatican council brought the church almost to the 20th century. What a great number of magnificent strides they took by declaring that non-catholics may not in fact all be deemed to the fires of hell. It saved me a lot of worrying about my best friend whose dad was a Lutheran pastor. I used to try to explain to her that she better switch to catholic so we could play in heaven some day. But she told me that since her dad was married to her mommy that he couldn't be a catholic priest. Do you non catholics see the type of brainwashing we were subject to as mere children? Do you realize how frightening it was to go to school and have the nuns tell you that everyone except catholics were going straight to hell?

Vatican II was a breath of fresh air and lots of changes happened at the catholic institution. After the sainted, but highly frowned upon by conservative clergy, Pope John XXIII passed away, then we had Pope John Paul who suddenly died under mysterious circumstances, and then we got good old, out of touch with reality, Pope John Paul II who effectively has brought the Church back to the middle ages. His minions, the Bishops, are doing a fine job of fucking up the world, thank you very much.

I'll be working on a new holy card this evening.

You Forgot Poland

Have you seen YouForgotPoland.com?

Bitchin' In Unladylike Terms

by pissed off patricia

Will someone please hold my gloves, because I must take them off.

Bush did it again. He is speaking on all the cable news shows and he got this spot under the guise that he was going to make a major speech about national security. Oh yeah, he's talking about national security alright. He's doing the national security part of his stump speech and that's all the hell it is. He is lying up the ying-yang, but what else is new? He is blistering Senator Kerry and the freakin' suck-up audience is whipped into a frenzy as they scream and yell. This is most bizarre because this is the second time he has scheduled a "major speech" and all it turned out to be was a fucking, vote for me or you're all going to die at the hands of the terrorists because that's what would happen if John Kerry wins, speech.

The stuff he's saying now on TV, he didn't have the guts to say to Senator Kerry's face during the debates. Now, with his cozy little ass kissing audience, he's tough and as usual, nasty. I find it so very strange that he smiles when he speaks of the most dastardly events. I also find it very strange that so damned many people actually believe the bullshit that he's saying. Meanwhile, the crawl at the bottom of the screen tells about car bombs and people being killed in Iraq. You remember, that's the place where we send soldiers die so they don't die over here. We send our soldiers over there to piss off everyone and then when our soldiers are murdered there, we don't even have to clean up the blood off our hands or anything. How tidy is that for the people of America? Soldiers, we would like you to run over to Iraq, jump into vehicles and ride through the towns so whoever the hell is over there, can shoot at you and kill you. We want you to do that because Saddam might have had an intent to harm America. Okay, maybe intent is a vague word but if you go and get killed over there it will be so much better for bush's re-election and all. We'll kiss you and wave good-bye when you leave, but please, if you return in a flag draped coffin, could you stay out of sight? You know how real a war seems when the public has to see dead soldiers coming home. It's not good for political morale, if you know what I mean.

This is going to sound sort of mean I guess, but when I see the flock worshipping at one of bush's bullshit fest, I want to ask everyone of them, if they are such god-damned war worshipers, why the hell don't they sign up and get their asses over to Iraq to fight this damned war. Women and men, if you love this fucking war so much and if you believe in this insane president, then fucking prove it to me. Go the hell over there today. We have a shortage of troops due to an overage of deaths, so put your life where your mouth is. Support bush? Sign up!

I'll take my gloves now. Thank you.

Just reminiscing today

This is the part of the show where I show my bleeding heart liberal side. It's actually not a whole side (and there is not much of it) but I it was 3 years ago this month that the US began bombing Afghanistan in retaliation for 9/11. Around that time, we were fed lots of stories about how oppressed the Afghani women and children were and our hearts went out to them. We were told that they were taken over by an evil Taliban regime. Of course they left out the part where the US was actually on their side several months earlier.

The people in Afghanistan were very poor and in bad shape from years of being under attack by Russia and the media did a great job of us understand why Afghanistan needed to be liberated from the evil war lords who were best buds with the 911 mastermind, Osama BinLaden. Sure I felt that they needed to be liberated. But how? Was this a good time to be worried about that? I was still shaking in my shoes here in NY, breathing WTC toxins and watching out for crop dusters filled with anthrax, I might add.

In my mind, carpet bombing a country wasn't exactly a solution.. I thought that judicial means would have been a fine place to start. I never thought of the US as a vengeful sort of country. I always thought of us as a sort of icon of justice. Boy was I brainwashed. To me, justice is not revenge. I wasn't raised to believe that. I was taught that god dispenses the 'ultimate justice', not men. So what on earth was all this talk about 'crusades' and 'operation infinite justice' I was seeing on Fox news? I was getting really alarmed. I thought the government had gone totally old world catholic. Did I mention that I became an atheist since October 2001? I did and yet amazingly I still have more compassion for others than those who follow Jesus professionally. But I digress.

I remember bush trying to convince blair and others that we needed to form a coalition to go in there and get OBL. I also remember thinking that there was no evidence or proof much like the nonsense about the Iraq war. I never saw any proof of WMDs. That really bugged me. We kind of hoped that the government knew stuff that they couldn't say on our tv cause the bad guys might be watching. I remember reports that the Taliban wouldn't hand bin Laden over to the US unless the US gave them evidence that OBL was behind the attacks. The US position was that they didn't have to give no stinking proof.

In newspapers however, there were stories that in fact the Taliban did finally agree to hand over OBL but on the television news, which most Americans were glued to at the time, that story was barely if ever touched upon. The US insisted that the Taliban would not hand over OBL contrary to newspaper reports that the Taliban didn't want to take sides with whomever bombed the WTC. The US became friendly with Pakistan all of a sudden and yet musharoff wouldn't do anything to hand over OBL because he couldn't guarantee his safety. WTF? remember that?

So bush told us all that the taliban wouldn't hand over OBL, that they rejected all forms of peaceful cooperation and there was no alternative than to use force. That was the US version. So the bombing started

Remember when you couldn't tell the difference between the before and after pictures of a bombing in Kabul? Wasn't that bizarre? They were bombing rubble. strange. You mean to tell me that we have no uncover spies and stuff like that? Nope. We don't even have spies who know all those languages of the people who have been plotting for decades to attack us. Amazing! What was the defense department doing all these years? The CIA? drug running?

I remember the exact day they began bombing and that was the weekend that I spent in bed in the fetal position praying to god for forgiveness. Mind you, less than a month earlier after we were attacked here in NY, I wanted people tortured but that was the shock and fear talking and I quickly got over it. Not that I exactly forgave the bastards who did it, but I wanted to know why and how it happened and what could be done to stop it from happening again. For me, war is always a last resort and I feel it should be a defensive thing. But I'm a girl, so what do I know, right?

So 3 years later, in some parts of Afghanistan, things are worse than before, yet they did sort of have democratic elections last week. The place is still a hell hole and bombed to pieces. There are stories of terrible things happening to Afghani's by the coalition troops, mostly ours. The europeans don't want to be under the command of the US anymore. The drug trade is up and running, thousands of people are left homeless, fatherless, motherless, childless... and the blood is on bush's hands. And where is the proof that this war in Afghanistan was needed? Infinite justice, indeed. feh.

Bitchin' Before, Laughing Now

by pissed off patricia

There is a contest to re-name the Iraq conflict over at norbizness.com.
If you feel like laughing, hop over there and read the submissions.

Then if you still need more laughs, go to Amazon.com
and read the reviews of Bill O'Reilly's book. Great fun!!! Jesus General left a particularly enlightening review, as have others. You'll love this!

Bitchin' and More Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

"Conversation with a Conservative: John Dean"

"If Bush and Cheney are reelected, what I think they'll do is not dissimilar from what they did in their first term, where their goal was to get reelected. It would be to indeed infuse the government with their radical-type thinking. They're not about to send the neoconservatives home. They're not about to change their radical environmental policies. And it'll really be a difficult time for the country. Damage could be done that we'll never unwind."

...John Dean...
from MotherJones

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

Did you know about this?
"Tens of Thousands Throng London to Protest Iraq War"

and you were ashamed of Abu Ghraib

Texas prisons are not much different than Abu Ghraib. Today's NY Times is running a story on sexual slavery in the state's prison system.

Homosexual young men are sold and traded to inmates in Texas and prison officials are not stopping the practice. As a matter of fact they question an inmate's faith and relationship to God when they complain.

Religion as intimidation is a major component of the Bush Administration's psychology and the Times is talking about it today with at least two other pieces: Vote and Be Damned by Maureen Dowd and Without a Doubt by Ron Suskind.

There were reports that Texas prison officials had been exported to run our POW camps in Iraq.

If that isn't connection enough, try discussing the topic of prison rape as a human rights issue in Texas. In classrooms, students snicker. On television 7-Up recently joked about "not picking up a dropped can of soda" in prison. N'yuck-n'yuck.

Violence is part of this culture. I have shown films in my college classes where students laughed at images of victims of lynching in Ken Burn's television series The Civil War. Students laughed at a lecture by a member of our embassy staff in Iran during the hostage crisis in 1979. The former ambassador showed them fictionalized television images from a movie of week broadcast of our personnel being blindfolded and taken captive.

One cannot discuss the abuse of humans when young people are entertained by violence. Our relationship to violence will not change until we can talk about how wrong violence is.

But it is far from changing when a problem such as this is regarded as funny.

Use BugMeNot.com to get user names and passwords for some articles.

The conservative agenda revealed again

MSNBC on October 15th:

ALLISON STEWART : Is it just possible that John Kerry really did make a heartfelt comment and the Cheneys really did just act as angry parents? Or does that just not happen in DC?

BUCHANAN: Look, you might have said that was the reaction when Edwards did it the first time, and he mentioned the daughter was gay, but when you do it the second time in a presidential debate and use the cold, hard word "lesbian," which really is offensive and what is to many people, this is deliberate. This is cold. This is calculated because Kerry and Edwards are hurting over the fact that they are both sympathetic to the idea that homosexual marriages should be elevated to the same level as traditional marriage. And to bring an innocent woman into this, you know what this is like? It's like finding a conservative who's a right-to-lifer and going on television and saying, "I'm sorry, my friend's daughter had an abortion." You don't do that.

If I caught only this part of the news, I'd be horrified that Kerry smeared a lesbian in some sort of shameful way. This sort of commentary should not be on a news channel because I expect news, not a Jerry Springer type contestant. Pat Buchanan smeared lesbians by saying that the word "lesbian" is offensive when in fact it was used respectfully by John Kerry. Lesbian is not a slang or derogatory word at all. Buchanan has to get his brain out of his pants and think before he speaks on national television and the MSNBC big shots ought to monitor what their paid anal-ysts have to say.

Then Buchanan went on to lie and say that Kerry/Edwards support homosexual marriage which they do not. Kerry said so on the debate but Buchanan left that out conveniently. No one corrected him.

Buchanan said that Kerry dragged an innocent woman into the debate. Since Cheney broke the story in public about his gay daughter previously and she works on the campaign committee, Kerry mentioning her is not out of bounds. Both Edwards and Kerry were very respectful of Mary Cheney and they do truly believe that she is a human being deserving of love and respect regardless of who she sleeps with at night. That was their point. Leave it to the conservatives to try to make something dirty out of it.

Pat Buchanan really screwed up on this part though:
"And to bring an innocent woman into this, you know what this is like? It's like finding a conservative who's a right-to-lifer and going on television and saying, "I'm sorry, my friend's daughter had an abortion." You don't do that."

I am going to take the liberty of changing a couple of words in what Buchanan said:
"And to bring an innocent woman into this, you know what this is like? It's like finding a conservative who's against homosexual rights and going on television and saying, "I'm sorry, my friend's daughter is gay." You don't do that."

First of all, yes you do if you are running for president and vice president on a platform that discriminates against gay people. Second of all, having an abortion is a choice and being a lesbian is not a choice.

Buchanan inadvertantly revealed the true conservative platform: If you're a conservative, then hypocrisy is the name of the game. You stick with a particular 'righteous' platform even though you don't believe in it or live it. Even if your daughter is gay or had an abortion, you don't soften your stance on the issue out of compassion for your loved one, but hold steadfastly and hard heartedly to the conservative ideology. Nice. Mary Cheney should be feeling really good about herself right about now.

Bitchin' On Sunday Too

by pissed off patricia

Okay, I suffered through all the Sunday morning news (?) shows and came away knowing not one iota more than I did when I went to bed last night. It was the same old, same old.

Everyone's bloomers were in a twist over the Cheney daughter deal. They admonished Kerry for saying what they were all happily repeating over and over and over. If, in their opinion it was an error for Kerry to say it, why then is okay for them to repeat it a zillion times? Are we seeing another media overkill as we did with the "Dean Scream? Looks like it to me. The media just keeps stirring the fire to keep the flames going. I wonder how long this would have lived if the media had stayed the hell out of it? No matter how anyone tries to spin that statement that Senator Kerry made, there is nothing negative about being gay. Those who see this as an abomination are for the most part either idiots or religious lunatics. Cheney's daughter is not a little girl, she a proud adult. If Kerry had been asked about heterosexuals and if he had spoken of Cheney's other daughter as an example, would all this bullshit have ensued? I doubt it.

If I had a gay child and someone said that my son or daughter was gay and knew that was who he or she was, damn, I'd be proud. I would glow with pride because my child had learned that kind of confidence and pride in themselves. Inside me I would also give myself some credit for raising this great person. I know deep down in my heart that I would never call anyone a "bad man" after they had just given me the nicest compliment a parent could ever receive. However, if someone lied to me and then sent my child to war, I would be angry as hell! That would truly be a horrible, repulsive, "bad man". Too bad that the Sunday morning media darlings don't spin and stir that logical reality.

Vote For Bush Or I'll Kill This Lamb

I thought today would be a good day to salute Catholic Bishops.

More Catholic Holy Cards at the Blondesense annex.

Maureen Dowd's column, VOTE AND BE DAMNED in today's NYTimes got me going again.


Use BugMeNot.com to get user names and passwords for some articles.

Bin Laden está en China

Madre de Dios!

La captura de Osama Bin Laden virtualmente garantizaría la re-elección de George Bush Jr., confirmaría a los millones de votantes indecisos en EEUU de que la guerra contra el terrorismo estaba justificada después de que Bin Laden autorizara los ataques del 11 de septiembre contra Nueva York y Washington. -El Mundo

Here it is in English

Thanks to pissed off patricia for the heads up.

You want more troops? You already have them

a blondesense brain spurt with no facts or figures to back it up

I figured out how to get more soldiers over there in Iraq so that we can send the reservists and the national guardsmen home to protect us in America from the evil terrorists who could come over our borders and kill us. We need the national guard to guard the borders. Aren't they supposed to protect us here in Amurka? I thought so. Listen, I am new to all this government and politics stuff. I'm a mere hack observer and commentator just like Tucker Carlson or Joe Scarborough.

I believe something like this was tried during the world wars: Put civilians to work on the non-combative jobs for the military. Why doesn't the military hire its very own citizens to cook, do maintenance, do computer stuff, fix trucks, planes, helicopters, plan the menus, drive big shots around, etc.... Rather than going back to community college to learn a new trade as the president insanely suggested, civilians would be happy to have the work. They have the money to pay us. It's our money anyway. If they can pay contractors in Iraq they can pay civilians on military bases.

Why not actually use our military to do real military work? I may be crossing a line here, I don't know cause I never served, but why not train the military men who are already enlisted to go out and kill people? There are a whole lot of military people who don't do combat. I don't know how many but I am sure there are thousands world wide.

"Johnny, we appreciate your fabulous garlic mashed potatoes here on the base, but you are needed in the war on freedom, son. Man the torpedos, Johnny!"

"Blondesense, how well do you make garlic mashed potatoes for 650 men? Nevermind. Get right on it, woman. It's your duty for your country."

And a now a couple of quotes for the day to cheer you all up:

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. The business of the Journalist is to destroy truth; To lie outright; To pervert; To vilify; To fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals for rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and or lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
(John Swinton, former Chief of Staff, The New York Times, 1953.)


"There is no such thing in America as an independent press... There is not one of you who dare to write his honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand they would never appear in print... You know this and I know it... We are the tools and vassals of rich men... they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents... our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
(US newspaper editor John Swinton, 1883.)

Seymour Hersh at Berkeley

Have you all seen Seymour Hersh at Berkeley on Real Player? It's over an hour but well worth it. He describes our neocon government which is brutally cruel and secretive. He explains how career military men (sources) are so distraught over revealing what is happening because they feel so betrayed and they are terrified of what bush and the neocons will do to them if they reveal the truth. Hersh has many many source checkers as well.

Hersh agrees that the press has not lived up to the first amendment. He says that the networks were threatened by the administration if they brought up sensitive topics and would not be allowed access to WH briefings. Big whoop. He is disappointed that the networks never revealed that fact to the public. I am too. I am depressed over it.

You have to push the scrolly thing in about 8 and a half minutes to get to Hersh on the video. He describes alarming things happening in Iraq... things like murder. Murder being ordered by our military commanders. He describes despondent and suicidal troops who worked at Abu Ghraib. He says that since June 28th, the US has been bombing the shit out Iraq exponentially and he fears if Bush is elected, the war will be escalated. Hersch says Bush is truly mad. We already knew that. But it's nice to see someone who is smarter than I am say it.

He talks about the straw man Zarqawi being reported as everywhere. The insurgency has deflected what they are doing on to Zarqawi and Bush fell for it hook line and sinker. We are buying useless intelligence according to Hersch. Oh I am so surprised. Hersch describes how 8 or 9 neocons convinced the Bush administration to take this horrible path to war. Hersh thinks that if Bush is elected that Europe is going to revolt violently against America and take over the peace process between Israel and Palestine. He says Europe has had it with Bush. Hell, I have had it with Bush.

There is so much information in this video that everyone should know. I am trying to find a transcript of it. If anyone has it, please post it. Thanks.

Bitchin' on Saturday About Insanity

by pissed off patricia

Florida, a major swing state, the state with Jeb bush, the home of some of the hijackers of 9-11, the state where one person was killed by the anthrax murderer, is now REMINDED OF 9-11. The message seems to be REMEMBER 9-11. REMEMBER THE NATIONAL GUARD WAS ALSO AT OUR AIRPORTS AFTER 9-11. REMEMBER TO BE AFRAID. REMEMBER THE CHIMPSTER IS FIGHTING THE TERRORISTS, and all that other shit.

Check out this headline.
"Florida National Guard troops may deploy at airport terminals statewide again"

And just as you may have already guessed:
"Several law-enforcement officials said there is no specific threat to Florida. It is unclear when, or whether, the troops will be ordered to the airports."
also
"Several Florida Guard soldiers, who spoke on the condition they not be identified, said commanders have been seeking volunteers in recent days. They said they were told the duty would last from one to four months, and that it might begin later this month."

Yeah, I'm shaking my head in disbelief too. What about the TSA? Can't they get the job done? Like everything else this administration has done, this is so damned obviously insane. Wouldn't you agree?

Stewart Slaps Fascist Media Whores

Jon Stewart went on Crossfire to tell them that he has mentioned many times that Crossfire is bad and he wanted to explain. Stewart went on to say that it isn't so bad as much as it's hurting America. Crossfire and shows like it are hurting America. Does John Stewart read this blog? He must. John said, "Stop hurting America. We need your help. You're helping politicians and corporations. You're part of their strategy... you're partisan, what do you call it... hacks." Brilliant. He was too kind though.

Tucker Carlson, whom Jon later criticized for wearing a bowtie at 35 years old but surmised that he must be somewhat bright cause they are hard to tie and then at the very end called him a dick on the air, was quick to talk over Stewart as much as possible before Stewart could barely finish a sentence. He took Stewart to task for not asking hard enough questions to John Kerry. Stewart reminded that twirp that the Daily Show is on Comedy Central and preceded by a puppet show. touche!

I have 2 reasons to wake up in the morning... well more than 2 but 2 that really fire me up. The first one is that we must take back the media. This media is taking this country right down the road to hell. There are no journalists anymore. They are partisan shills with no analytical skills. They are in fact whores. Most Americans are not radical partisans but the whores are doing a great job trying to win converts to their side. Most Americans are rather moderate. We are sick and tired of trying to find real news in the media and it's nothing but government/corporate spin. Can you say fascism? Good. I knew you could.

The other reason I wake up in the morning is to fight the hijacking of christianity by so called purists who supposedly live by the bible. The fact that our administration consults with the christian coalition, who are anything but christian, makes this situation even more intolerable. Our leader, the dry drunk born again christian, would like nothing better than to be raptured so he doesn't have to live with his withdrawal pain anymore and just lead us all to armageddon. Well it ain't gonna happen. Not under my watch.

Here's the video of Jon Stewart on Crossfire. Here is the transcript.

Reality is Funnier Than Fiction

by pissed off patricia

Here's a Friday Funny. Trouble is, it's for real. This is a letter to the editor that appears on The Advertiser's website.

Kerry needs to learn correct use of English

October 8, 2004

I taught English in this area for more than 50 years and cannot swallow, without comment, the gross grammatical error made by a Presidential candidate of MY America.

On page 3A of a recent Advertiser, quoting Kerry, one reads, “I support fully funding the VA healthcare system and I agree ... that the answer lays in providing ...”

An answer simply cannot lay (which means “to place”); an answer can only lie, that is, remain or stay. I do not want my president of these great states not to know the difference! If Kerry aspires to such a prominent position, he should take some lessons in English!

Ernestine (Tina) Moss

Lafayette

Friday Blonde Ranting

Even though I hate the president, it doesn't mean I am in hate with him, if you know what I mean. I could easily not hate him once he is back in Crawford clearing brush or fishing in his man made cee-ment pond. I would just look back at the 4 disastrous years of his reign, shake my head, look at my feet, light up a smoke, drag deeply, exhale, look up at the sky and say, "Thank god that c---sucker is back in Texas and all his minions are in jail. Boy, that was close. weeeee doggies."

One good thing that came out of the debates and the WaPo reports it today is that while bush/rove made Kerry out to be some sort of hippy dippy, Jane Fonda arse kissing, pot smoking, flaky, wishy washy good for nothing, the debates proved otherwise. Americans got a glance at quite a presidential, articulate man who proved to be quite the opposite of the bush/rove description.

And it's just too fucking bad that the Cheney's were so mad at John Kerry's, quite nicely put, if I must say, mention of Mary Cheney's sexual orientation which was well known by progressive people who actually read the newspaper. It was an important point for Kerry to bring up and it wasn't his fault that the moderator brought up the gay issue. It was an important point for some of bush's base, the gay bashing republicans, to know that their veep's daughter is gay and it's no big deal. It may just soften some hearts out there in redneck land. And doesn't Lynne Cheney kind of dream of swinging both ways herself? Just wondering.

In an interesting article by Timothy Noah in Slate, he tells bush to lay off the liberal smears of Massachusetts as he did in the debates and that was mean because god only knows what fun Kerry could have had with the state of Texas. In fact Taxachusetts is one of the few states that doesn't actually feed gluttonously off the federal trough. For every tax dollar Massachusetts kicks in, it gets back in services and subsidies is only .79. See for yourself. The liberal states are not the ones sucking up the federal money.

In England the folks are so concerned about the outcome of our election that they are giving information about voters in Clark County, Ohio to Brits and asking them to politely appeal to them because the US election affects the whole world. Can you remember ever where the whole world was terrified of a US President? The Guardian also has an article where the writer thinks that the whole world should vote in US elections because the world is so disenfranchised because of bush.

I mean look how much the US has fucked up the world under the leadership of the cowboy. Who doesn't even ride a horse, I might add.

We can blame the US mainstream media for this freaking nightmare from hell. They were all responsible for this and they know it. They know that only 11% of Americans actually read the papers so they got their propaganda out there on the TV and didn't give 2 shits about whether or not it was true or not. Even conservatives who are on the ball know that . What the hell did bush conserve anyway? Money? hell no. The environment? god forbid. Civil rights? yeah right... and the list goes on.

And poor Bill O'Lielly has to get women drunk in order to get them to have sex with him. What a shame. Ewww, just wash me with a falafel and put me to sleep.

You can download Going Upriver, the Long War of John Kerry, for free here. It opens in theaters on October 1st.

Use BugMeNot.com to get user names and passwords for some articles.

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

The Cheney's Want a 15-yard Penalty and an Automatic First Down

Let's Review the Play

In football if you make incidental contact with the place-kicker following a punt you receive a 5-yard penalty. This is referred to as running into the kicker. If, on the other hand, you make contact with the punter in a manner that could result in injury it is called roughing the kicker. Roughing the kicker results in a 15-yard penalty and an automatic first down.

If you watch football, you know the theatrics that kickers are famous for doing. When a kicker is barely touched, he'll fall to the field and ham it up as he pretends to writhe in pain. Big penalties result from roughing the kicker. It's part of the game.

Yesterday, the Cheney's were the kickers and Senator Kerry was the player who barely touched them. They tried to get the ref to give the big penalty due to their "injuries". The Cheneys seemed to feel they had been roughed up something awful by Kerry's remarks about their daughter. Nice try Cheneys but this isn't football, and you guys aren't good actors. Upon reviewing the play we found there was only incidental contact made between your hearts and the Senator's words about your daughter. The play results in only a 5-yard penalty and no first down. Kerry’s team now controls the ball and it’s time to resume play.

***
Re: ABC News:" Injured Iraq Vets Come Home to Poverty"

Our government supports our troops as long as they are useful for that killing job of war. But, when they are injured, and therefore no longer useful, what happens to them is a sin See, this is one more thing that wasn't planned for when we went lickity-split off to war all wrapped up in our American flags and our patriotic fervor.

Here are a few quotes from the story.

"Army Spc. Tyson Johnson III of Mobile, Ala., who lost a kidney in a mortar attack last year in Iraq, was still recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center when he received notice from the Pentagon's own collection agency that he owed more than $2,700 because he could not fulfill his full 36-month tour of duty."

"But Johnson now lives in his car. It is where he spends most of his days, all of his nights, in constant pain from his injuries and unwilling to burden his family."

"Stories like Tyson Johnson's are not unique."

and

"Many of the severely wounded soldiers returning from Iraq face the prospect of poverty and what they describe as official indifference and incompetence.

"Guys I've met, talking to people, they'd be better off financially for their families if they had died as opposed to coming back maimed," said Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly, who served as a civil affairs specialist for the Army while in Iraq."

and

"Perhaps as a sign of the grim outlook facing many of these wounded soldiers, Staff Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman from Brockton, Mass., said he is grateful for being a double amputee.

"Well, in a way, I'm kind of lucky losing both arms because I've been told I'll probably get 100 percent disability," he said."

As we "spread freedom around the world", we use and abuse our troops. Hell of a promo for recruitment isn't it? Join, fight, receive severe injuries and then we don't give a damn about you. You would think this big damned superpower could do better.

Voter Fraud

Krugman must read Blondesense. I scooped him on a lot of this stuff already. But I'm not mad at him because he has a wider reach than I do at this time.

But here is a tidbit I didn't know about the black voters in Florida who were on the felon list and thus unable to vote even though they weren't felons but their names sort of kind of might have sounded like that of a possible felon, if they were a Democrat:

In an article coming next week in Harper's, Greg Palast, who originally reported the story of the 2000 felon list, reveals that few of those wrongly purged from the voting rolls in 2000 are back on the voter lists. State officials have imposed Kafkaesque hurdles for voters trying to get back on the rolls.Depending on the county, those attempting to get their votes back have been required to seek clemency for crimes committed by others, or to go through quasi-judicial proceedings to prove that they are not felons with similar names.

They have to prove they are innocent? They have to seek clemency for crimes committed by others? What country is this? WTF is the matter with Florida ladies and gentlemen? Oh I know what is the matter: Jebbie Bush.

"Mr. Palast notes that in the 2000 election, almost 180,000 Florida votes were rejected because they were either blank or contained overvotes. Demographers from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission estimate that 54 percent of the spoiled ballots were cast by blacks. And there's strong evidence that this spoilage didn't reflect voters' incompetence: it was caused mainly by defective voting machines and may also reflect deliberate vote-tampering.Republican vote tampering is widespread and rampant."

They say Democrats do it too. Krugman investigated and says there are hardly any comparable credible accusations and not at the magnitude that Republicans do it nationwide.

In the 2000 election, we only heard about the Florida fiasco, but can you imagine how many other states were pulling this sort of stuff? I'll grant that Florida probably took the most liberty since it is a Bush state. I insist that you watch the Palast movie, Bush Family Fortunes, the Best Democracy Money Can Buy, because he is quite an investigator and you will be startled at what really happened in Florida in 2000.

I have a funny feeling that if Bush does take the election on November 2nd, this time no supreme court judges will be allowed to decide the election. There will be recounts all over the country. You've got Republican front groups signing up voters and throwing away the Democratic registration forms, you've got weasels designing ballots that make a vote for Kerry come out as a vote for Bush, you've got weasels insisting that a certain type of paper or a certain box must be checked off in order for a registration to count... oh these guys are good, ladies and gentlemen. These bastards are very good at what they do.

Use BugMeNot.com to get user names and passwords for some articles.

Bitchin' About the Looting of Iraq

by pissed off patricia


This is such an excellent article : "Iraq's looted heritage makes a steady - if slow - comeback"

It tells you about what was looted from the museums and libraries in Iraq. It's heartbreaking to read about the history that has been forever lost. As you're reading it remember what Rumsfeld said about the looting. Remember he made that smart assed remark about it wasn't many urns being stolen, it was a rerun of the same urn being stolen. As if we were so damned stupid we wouldn't catch on to the rerun deal? (well, maybe the bush base is that damned stupid) Also remember he said something to the fact that the looting was the way people react when they are given freedom. I think basically he didn't give a damn about the history that was preserved in Iraq and he didn't give a damn what happened to it.

Some of the pieces have been recovered but others never can be seen again. What a tragic loss. If only these items had been guarded as closely as the oil fields were.

Here's an interesting paragraph:

"In all, about 15,000 objects (from small jewelry pieces to ancient seals) were stolen, but about 4,000 of those were recovered, Hameed says, while another 4,000 are "on their way back" - from places like Amman and Paris and New York's Kennedy Airport, where officials have confiscated more than 600 pieces."

List of Lists

1. List of advertisers on Sinclair Broadcasting for you to boycott and contact.
2. List of states that will ban abortion if Roe v Wade is overturned. 30 of them!
3. List of corporate pork barrel spending by Congress.
4. List of results of last nights debates. Bush loses. What else is new?
5. List of countries that are off limits in presidential race discussions. Guess who?
6. List of 500 Security Scholars who say war in Iraq is worse than Vietnam.
   
7. List of non media whores for Iraq It's so short.
   
8. List of climate change predictions. Scary
9. List of reasons why a wealthy white christian corporate CEO won't vote for Bush.
   
10. List of articles about voter fraud and and here too. Yes, in our country.
11. List of Recent UFO sightings. For fun.
12. List of Bush Flip Flops. pathological.

Got any more?

bush doth protest too much, me thinks

How many different Bush personalities did we see in the last 3 debates? 3
How many different Kerry personalities did we see in the last 3 debates? 1

Who is your flip floppin' daddy-o?

Wouldn't you also think that in a race for president that includes an incumbent that the incumbent would run on his own record? Not this incumbent. All his photo-ops and big so-called newsworthy stories were for naught. He ran a smear campaign instead. How undignified for a president. (reminded me of NJ political races)

Kerry came across as a steadfast, smart, world savvy and warm sort of man. His looks are growing on me too. face lifts are good He was very consistent and steady in getting his message across, sometimes having to let a bush lie just sit there because it would take Kerry off his message. That was an excellent thing to do. Kerry's accusations against Bush took Bush away from his message because Bush got terribly defensive. He loses it under pressure. He loses it when he isn't being honest. My daddy, the most wonderful man I ever knew, always told me that those who "doth protest too much" are usually lying. My dad was good at character assumption as well as Shakespeare.

Bush doth protest too much. At the first debate, bush scowled and made the most ridiculous faces. He positively acted like a teenager. At the last debate, bush went on a couple of good rampages showing his swaggering, twangy, cowboy meets Mafia persona. Yeah, that's that man I want overseeing my reproductive rights and dealing with distinguished foreign leaders. Hey, we're not in the wild west anymore.

Bush displayed his smiling man persona last evening. It was sick. He smiled too much. I do that when I am nervous. Bush's smile didn't match his eyes. One reader noted that his left lip was pointed down and another noted that there was drool. Perhaps a sign of a recent stroke? Did you notice that his drawl was gone? The Amazing Come and Go Drawl... comes and goes at will. Did he take diction lessons since last Friday? Or does the drawl come out when he is fixin' to be hog tied?

You can tell a lot about a man by his wife. Robot wives signify a bully of a husband. No one wants a bully to run their country. Bullies get in needless fights. As a country, fights cost a lot of money... and lives. The fact that Laura is a robot, 'First Robot' as Bill Maher calls her or Laura 'Stepford' Bush as I call her, tells me that this man is not fit for much of anything useful, let alone running the country. He's a goon as we say here in Mafia country.

As much as everyone hates/hated Barbara Bush, I kind of respected her because she wore the pants in the family, as the expression goes. Poppy Bush didn't invade Baghdad because he knew it would be a mess. He wrote that in his book. Babs probably told him not to get too cocky. Look at Hillary and Nancy. Men with wives like that will not destroy the country totally. Believe me. They might try, but they won't get away with it. I'm sure Laura is a nice lady but nice is boring and she is brain dead, ladies and gentlemen. I am voting for Mrs. Teresa Kerry.

A man, who marries a woman who isn't afraid to be who she is, is a man who is comfortable in his own skin. A man who marries a mouse is a big show off with not much in his pants or in his head. -blonde proverb

Bitchin'

by pissed off patricia

Last night cinched it, a trifecta for Kerry. Now, if we can have a fair and legal election in this country, we should have a shiny new president real soon. Why do I feel the Afghan people have a better shot at a fair election than we do?

Last night bush lost his third debate and the lives of six of our soldiers in Iraq.

***

Now let's gossip, let's talk trash, and yes, let's discuss the disgusting, Bill O'Reilly. Whether he is guilty as charged is yet to be determined, but one thing is for sure. As far as I'm concerned, the guy is truly repulsive in every single way.

According to Andrea Mackris, Bill O'Reilly wanted to be her "daddy" in a funky, phone sexy, kind of way. Ms Mackris asserts that old Bill told her to buy a vibrator and give it a name. If this is all true, and I'll remain skeptical for a while, it makes me laugh. I'm not laughing because a woman may have been sexually harassed. I'm laughing because it's funny to think that perhaps, Mr. God and Country, bush backer, O'Reilly, may have been caught with, okay I gotta say this, caught with his pants down.

Personally I can't think of too many other males in this country who repulse me more than Bill O'Reilly does. He is what I consider a nightmare as a man. Oh god, could he be more disgusting? His cockiness and his bellowing make me ill. Just imagine his voice coming from your phone as he describes sexual activity. I think I would have to burn my phone and get a lobotomy so I could forget the trauma.

If I had to guess about all this, I would probably come down on the side of the woman. Bill seems to me like the kind of man who would surely brag about his sexual escapades and even make up some just so he could sound "sexually worldly" and all. Let's face it, his track record with facts and honesty on his show is not real good. He is prone to being creative when it comes to his view of the political world. And I don't think anyone who has seen his show would argue that the guy has an out of control ego.

Yep, if there was ever a guy who behaved as though he would be the type to try to instruct young women on the ins and outs of sex, Bill O'Reilly would make my short list.

O'Lielly Does Phone Sex?

Seems he is being sued for sexual harassment and according to all I have read, he was pretty specific about it. It was definitely sexual harassment if everything the woman said really happened. Being a female, I know all about this. Back in the day when stuff like this happened to us, we could report it but nothing would happen. The harasser would get a promotion and the woman would get demoted or just stay in the same lousy position in her company.

I can't believe O'Lielly is only 54. I thought he was in his 60's. Seriously. Can you imagine the parents who bought his new kid's book going, "eeeeewwwwwwww"? Don't you be messing with my kid, O'Lielly!

On his website, he likens this lawsuit to just another incident in these treacherous times we live in. I am surprised he didn't call the woman who is suing him a terrorist.

Debate Forum

Will John F. Kerry squash bush like the little wormy monkey that he is or will he succumb to more GOP smears and let them slide? Will I laugh my ass off at bush's gaffes or will I cry? Will Bush's wire tap fall out of his suit? Will he positively blow his fuse?

A DEBATE PRAYER
BY BLONDESENSE
Oh God, Dear Lord, Almighty Creator of our universe....
Please let our leader lose his cool in front of whole world.
Please Lord show your power and your dismay
at our evil leader by allowing him to display his true colors.
Save us from tyranny. Save us from oppression.
Save our uteruses. Save us from monkey boy.
Amen

Ooops. Iraq really couldn't attack anyone within 45 minutes. Sorry old chap.

Oh man, England really takes the cake too. Yesterday the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain formally withdrew his infamous claim that Iraq was 45 minutes from launching weapons of mass destruction. He abandoned his source for intelligence once and for all. Today Tony Blair refuses to apologize for anything and doesn't accept that there was deception are you picturing this? and says he is happy that they went to war and took out Saddam anyway cause he was a bad bad man. The sensational claims of the WMDs just exploded in the faces of the British government.

When will it explode in the faces of our government?

Oh that's right, our media speaks for the bad guys. Sorry.

Bitchin' and You Will Be Too!

by pissed off patricia

Forgive any typos etc. I may make as I type this. My hands are still trembling from the words I just heard on TV. By sheer chance I turned to C-SPAN this afternoon and came in, in the middle of a live broadcast of a hearing. This was the Civil Rights and Liberties After September 11, hearing. At the time I tuned in John Conyers was chairing the hearing. He is the Judiciary Committee ranking member. Many of the panelists were attorneys representing various civil rights and civil liberties organizations.

What these panelists were saying made cold chills run up my back as they described different civil rights abuses and how the government is basically ignoring them in the name of fighting terrorism. It was all so frightening that it was difficult to listen to and believe. Then another panelist spoke. Her name is Tasneem Abu-Ali.

Miss Abu-Ali is twenty two years old, an American citizen born in Texas and she is Muslim. Her brother, Ahmed, was arrested in June of 2003 in Saudi Arabia. Her brother who is also is an American citizen, was studying in Saudi Arabia at the university. During one of his finals, he was arrested and placed in a Saudi prison. Seems the FBI had asked the Saudis to do this. To make a long and sadly awful story short, in May of this year a grand jury found no charges against Miss Abu-Ali's brother but her brother is to this day still in the Saudi prison. It has been confirmed to her that while in prison he has had his fingernails torn off as he was tortured.

When I listened to her story I began to cry. I was crying for so many reasons. This was my country, my government and I was appalled because since this is America, this is America's shame. The Saudis have apologized to Miss Abu-Ali's brother for his arrest but due to the influence of our government, they cannot allow him to go free.

If you get an opportunity to see a rerun of this hearing, please watch it. If everyone in the United States saw this program, I cannot believe the bush administration would get one single vote on November 2. We have not only outsourced torture, we are condoning it and we should all be so ashamed.

THIS IS A MUST READ ABOUT THIS CASE
Go here and read about Ahmed Abu-Ali's case. Elaine Cassel has all the facts on this case.
Go here and take action.

There is hope

I was thinking over the weekend after I listened to Rosie O'Donnell talking to Ranting Randi Rhodes on the radio talking about Barbara Streisand... I was thinking that Kerry's got the Jewish woman vote for sure and all the other Barbara lovers. Barbara has been empowering her base to get out and vote. It's the "Buttah Base". I understand that Bruce Springsteen is having trouble getting his redneck fan base to listen to his message though. Old white men. Too bad. Linda Ronstadt is my idol but I hated neocons before I knew she did too.

Women could be the saviors of this election though. After all, it's a little known fact that Clinton served 2 terms because of women voters. "Oh yes dear, I would never vote for that terrible cad. Can you imagine such a handsome powerful charismatic man actually having the hots for a CHUBBY GIRL? How simply disgusting. yuk. He's evil and his wife is simply horrifying. She talks too much and she is just too damn smart for a woman. ewwww. Oh yes I am voting for George Bush (or Bob Dole) dear..." NOT

Howard Stern is doing his best to mobilize his base, whatever they may be. Men and bisexual women? Well whatever... He did get Christie Todd Whitman and George Pataki elected. He does have pull believe it or not. "Vote for my favorite candidate and I will give you lesbian dial a date everyday for a month! Naked" Duh, okay Howard.

Today Mark Morford points out that Oprah is doing her darndest to get some of the 50 million eligible disenfranchised women to vote for that dashing frenchman, John F. Kerry. That's right ladies, if Bush wins, he will appoint evil judges, men who haven't had sex or seen a vagina in over 30 years who will decide once and for all what a woman can or cannot do with their bodies. Frightening... Morford (you should subscribe to his newsletter) paints a scary picture. I'm trembling as I cut and paste this:

Imagine Bush filches another election in November. Nations mourn, black clouds gather, children cry, colons spasm, the remaining shreds of the American experiment wither and die.

And within a very short time, as many as 30 U.S. states have recriminalized abortion and made repressing women and hating sex fun again, as young American females everywhere who thought their right to choose was pretty much incontrovertible and indisputable and unfailing and who therefore didn't bother to vote in '00 or '04 suddenly go, oh holy freaking hell.

Hello, 1950s. Hello, coat-hanger surgery. Hello, millions of despondent daughters of uptight parents. Hello, dead or mutilated teenage girls who suffer botched procedures. Hello, a fresh national nightmare, revisited, regurgitated, reborn. And hello again to smug right-wing males who've wanted to put women back in their place for the past 50 years. Check that: 200 years. Check that: forever.

Just a silly nightmare? Utterly impossible? A ridiculous liberal daydream? Not even close, sweetheart.

oooohhhhhh. He's right too.

By the way, my son is participating in Hofstra Votes day. He complains that his school is simply overrun with bush supporters. (He chose to wear his "Go Fuck Yourself" Tshirt with the picture of Dick Cheney designed by Jesus' General to school today. And I am so proud. heh) I have written to the president of the school several times complaining that they are not doing their job if young people actually support that chimpanzee. So today it seems that Hofstra got it's act together. Several weeks ago, the board of elections was there signing up kids to vote. Now all they have to do is edumacate the kids on the issues. Check out this fabulous PDF with the schedule of events. My son is at the event with the returning soldiers from Iraq now. That ought to scare the shit out of the bush supporting, SUV driving yuppies. Laura Flanders, my favorite personality from Air America will be there later speaking to young women about how dubya hates women and will put them back in the dark ages with the First Robot. My son will be at the debate watching event and the student discussion afterward will be broadcast on CBS. That is so cool.

There is hope. There is definitely hope America. We may be saved afterall.

Bitchin' Tonight's Debate

Bitchin'
by pissed off patricia

Tonight's Debate
Watching More Shit Slide Down the Wall

Someone had better keep an eye on the hall where tonight's debate will be held because I have a gut feeling that the bush brigade will try to sneak in and coat the walls with pine tar. That's the only way bush is going to get something to stick. He keeps flailing away in his attempts to demean Senator Kerry. In the two previous debates he has thrown everything against the wall but so far most of it didn't stick. Instead, it slid down to the floor, rotted, and now it's beginning to smell really bad.

Look for bush to wind up and throw the "he's a tax and spend liberal" phrase, the "he can't make up his mind" phrase, and the old pathetic standby, "he won't make us safe" phrase, plus lots of other garbage, in his desperate final attempt to get something to stick.

The word is already out that, even though this debate is supposed to be about domestic issues, bush is going to try to resurrect his infamous war on terror rhetoric. Of course we all know why, it's because his record on domestic issues sucks. He's done jack shit for the citizens of the US, unless of course you want to count the benefits the funeral directors of America have received due to the war. Over one thousand additional funerals and counting. Maybe that's what he should talk about regarding his economic record on the domestic front. Maybe he should talk about the financial benefits of the war. Bring up the financial benefits he has accrued for the funeral directors and the companies who make the coffin drape-able US flags. Those companies have made a killing.

I wonder who plays the part of bush when Senator Kerry prepares for the debates. Do they really use a little live chimp? If they don't, I think they should. We all know how little chimps just kind of jump up and squeal for no particular reason. They make funny faces and do little chimpy things like scratching themselves and picking at inappropriate places on their bodies. Then there's their goofy little habit of grinning while they toss their own fecal matter around. Yes indeed, Senator Kerry really should have to practice with a little live chimp sitting on a stool and that way he could get used to bush's interruptions and bizarre activities.

Tonight will be the final debate before the most important election of our lifetime and maybe in the history of the United States. In a few weeks the results will be in and we'll know whether our country has a snowball's chance in hell of recovering from the damages of hurricane bush. Now is the time for all the undecideds, the "but what about Nader?" group, the great people of the Green Party, and all good Americans to come to the aid of their country. It's time to stop saying, what about me and start saying, what about America and what about the future of our country. We know what these last four years have been about. They've been about fear, war, hate, death, and loss. That's not what America is about but that's what bush's four years have been about.

Tonight, order the pizza, chill the beer, shake the cocktails, kick back and watch bush in his last ditch, chimpy like effort, as he tosses more fecal matter and tries one more time to make some damned something stick to the wall. The debate tonight will be kind of like a visit to the chimp cage at the zoo, sure it stinks but it's kinda fun to watch.

Electioneering is dirty business but someone's gotta do it

Remember Janklow, the former governor and congressman who killed a guy by accident? Well he even charges that the national GOP is encouraging campaign workers to cheat.

Voter Registrations in Nevada conducted by Voter Outreach were a sleaze operation. Turns out that they threw the Democrat registrations in the garbage!

WaPo Reports:

Nice: "...a new federal law that requires all states to give voters whose names do not appear on the rolls a "provisional ballot" that will count if it can be determined after Election Day that the voter was properly registered."
Bad: "Blackwell, Blunt and Republican election chiefs in Florida, Michigan and Colorado have been sued by Democratic groups for putting up hurdles in the counting of such ballots..."

Bad: "Florida Secretary of State Glenda E. Hood (R), (this year's Katherine Harris) issued a legal opinion that new registrations should be discarded if applicants signed an oath affirming their citizenship but forgot to check a citizenship box -- could bar thousands from voting."

Stupid: "In Iowa, Secretary of State Chet Culver (D) is under attack for sending out a voter guide that included an absentee-ballot request. Although the mailing went to every Iowa household, absentee voting in that state has traditionally favored Democrats, and Republican officials cried foul."

Good: In New Mexico, Democrat Rebecca Vigil-Giron, successfully fought off a GOP-led lawsuit that sought to require thousands of newly registered voters to show identification at the polls.

Bad: In Maryland, the Republican-led State Board of Elections is trying to oust Administrator Linda H. Lamone, a Democrat.

Bad: In the swing state of Minnesota, Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer (R) is fed up with the partisan sparring. Liberal groups have charged her with attempting to stifle voter turnout by failing to keep up with the demand for new voter registration forms, rushing into service a flawed statewide registration system and issuing warnings about terrorism at the polls.

OY FLORIDA: And "Florida continues to distinguish itself as the No. 1 problem state for voters in 2004," said Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, one of the monitoring groups. "Unless it takes significant steps, minority voters will once again encounter problems there."

A delightful reader named Dennis from Ottawa County in west Michigan sent along this picture of a Bush/Cheney billboard. Now let's just study this baby for a minute. This is scary stuff since Bush is in fact the anti-christ. What do you all make of this? Notice the word 'under' is underlined. What do you suppose that means?


UPDATE: Our readers are so darn bright. They gave me a revelation



UPDATE: MORE VOTING FRAUD STORIES
DAILY KOS on Nathan Sproul, a fine Christian Coalition head and criminal.
Do a google news search on voter fraud and your hair will fall out... no not really.

Watch this

Debating For Ratings The flash Video

And sign up to join Free Press E-Activists
As you know, large media conglomerations have undermined our democracy. It is crucial that we do something about this. No matter what happens on November 2nd, our work is not finished.


And watch this one too. Hilarious. Thanks to Stevens

Ignoramuses

bush's base never ceases to amaze me. Poor Christopher Reeve passed away. So what do the freepers do? They blast him, bless their self-righteous souls. Digby points out some of their blasphemous posts. Did you know that bush's base thinks that stem cell research relies on aborted fetuses and therefore believe that John Kerry and Christopher Reeve were in cahoots and Christopher Reeve got paralyzed and died on purpose in order to push for stem cell research and to promote abortions for political points!

Here are a couple of sample comments from freepers. Read more at Digby.

"The main gist of the dem line is: we need to keep legal the ability to take growing humans and detroy them through abortion so we can use their body parts to help other people like Chris Reeve (potentially) live better. The bloodlust is positively demonic."

"You think you're cynical? I am wondering if Clark Kent would possibly pull the plug on himself in a desperate attempt to "matyrize" the stem-cell issue and help Kerry?"

"Reeve seemed like a nice chap until he got involved with the pro-death wing of the democrat party. We can't always get what we want, but we often get what we deserve."

"The fact is, Mr. Reeve spent his last days using his fame and access to champion the murder of unborn children."

Good lord. Not only are these people ill informed, they are downright evil. They honestly think that Democrats and those who support stem cell research think that aborted fetuses are being used. Who started that rumor? Lush Bimbo?

To wingers: Stem cells come from fertility clinics. You know those women who are so desperate to have babies that they have invitro fertilization in order to fulfill their dreams? Well a few extra fertilized eggs that can turn into babies, if embedded in a woman's uterus, are discarded eventually after the woman is impregnated. Rather than chuck what wingers would wrongly call fetuses or human beings, they can be used for scientific research. Seems better than throwing them in the garbage. Even if they banned abortion, there would still be stem cells for research as long as there is invitro fertilization. These eggs were fertilized in test tubes, not in the back seat of a car by a wanton woman in the heat of lust. I spent a whole semester in grad school on this topic. oy. Moral Theology.

Thanks to Mousewords for the heads up on this topic. I just can't believe the utter hatred of ignoramuses (or ignorami for ignoramuses).

PS Pharyngula has a post addressing these complete imbeciles and explains to them the difference between a human being and a clump of cells.

Sinclair Broadcasting Updates

Philly.com: This is good, "...it turns out that Sinclair officials don’t always practice the conservative, family values that they preach.
In 1996, the company’s outspoken CEO, David D. Smith, was arrested by Baltimore undercover officers and charged with a misdemeanor sex offense involving a female prostitute." ooops! But I really don't give a shit what these guys do on their down time, because in my long life on this earth, one thing I have learned is that the ones who preach high values are usually the ones who also practice the kinkiest sex.

BaltimoreSun.com: "The Democratic Party took aim at Sinclair Broadcast Group yesterday, saying a program the Maryland-based corporation plans to air criticizing John Kerry's anti-war activism amounts to an illegal corporate campaign contribution to President Bush."

Use this listing of local SBG affiliates and their advertisers to help prevent SBG from airing the anti-Kerry "documentary"

Reuters News: "Sinclair executives have given thousands to the Bush campaign, and the company refused to air the April 30 "Nightline" episode in which hundreds of names of American troops killed in Iraq were read by ABC anchor Ted Koppel. " The bastards.

We wouldn't even have to deal with this nonsense if the media were regulated and balanced. When we get the house back, we have got to stay awake and push for re-regulation of the media and I am going to bug you guys to stay with this. Deregulation of the media is what made this crypto-fascist regime possible in the first place. Thank you.

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I'm No Economist But...

Bush's latest commercial once again declares that he inherited a recession. Honestly I am so sick and tired of that lie and I am fed up with the complicit media in allowing that lie to go on for the past 3 1/2 years. Let's get this straight. Bush did not inherit a recession. Finally FactCheck.org asserts that this is true as well. Finally.

"But employment was still growing when Bush was sworn in, and the economy actually added 113,000 payroll jobs between January and March 2001, before starting to decline in April.

In fact, the NBER did not even make a determination that a recession had begun until 10 months after Bush was sworn in, and said that the downturn might not even have qualified as a recession until the attacks of September 11, 2001 exacerbated the nation's economic troubles. The NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee said, "Before the attacks, it is possible that the decline in the economy would have been too mild to qualify as a recession. The attacks clearly deepened the contraction and may have been an important factor in turning the episode into a recession.""

When Bush was first in office he was talking down the economy. I completely disagreed with his remarks about the surplus, the economy and money in general. He seemed very careless and reckless. I kept remarking to Billydoom and he will verify that I mentioned it often, that bush's constant talking about the decline of the economy would actually make the economy take a turn for the worse. I felt like he was deliberately trying to screw up the economy for some reason and at that time, I only hated his guts for stealing the election and not much else. I also remember that the economy wasn't all that bad. It wasn't great, but there was no need for alarm and if there was to be a recession it would be hardly noticable in most parts of the country. I was writing letters back then suggesting that bush try to quit talking about a declining economy because it's a self fulfilling prophecy. If people feel confident and spend, the economy won't spin into a terrible recession. But alas 9/11 happened and after that even I wasn't in the mood to buy anything and that is pretty amazing.

AP Whores

This is the stuff that really ticks me off:
Bush: Kerry's Plans Would Require Tax Hike
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer and whore

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - President Bush told supporters Tuesday in the conservative heart of Colorado that John Kerry cannot pay for the domestic programs he is proposing unless taxes are raised on the middle class.

See? this is what really pisses me off. He failed to mention that HIS congress today also gave 143 billion in tax cuts to his corporate welfare recipients. That's right. Corporations which already make way too much money and hardly pay their employees any money if they aren't outsourcing the jobs are getting more tax relief. Now how does this help Americans?

"As much as he's tried to obscure it," Democrat Kerry is a confirmed liberal, Bush said in a run-up to Wednesday night's final debate.

And so the hell what? If a liberal means that Kerry cares more about people than corporations, then I will take a liberal. You see, ladies and gentlemen, in bush's head and in his warped sense of entitlement, he thinks that Kerry will have to tax the middle class to pay for the programs that will help the middle class and poor. But Bush doesn't understand that the very wealthy and the big corporations are going to pay for the programs that help the poor. duh. How are they going to pay for it under Kerry's plan? We are going to go back to the tax structure that was in place when Clinton was president... the part where the rich people paid their share. That is when the budget was balanced and there was a surplus. I know that that is anathema to Republicans. But honestly, except for the very wealthy among you, who felt that they were extremely over taxed during the Clinton years? I didn't feel unnecessarily burdened. I wasn't doing that well financially, but it wasn't the taxes that were killing me.

The presidential debates have "showed differences between the senator and me on issues ranging from jobs to taxes to health care to the war on terror," said the president, who underscored the importance that health care could play in the debate in Tempe, Ariz.

Bush said he has the answers to fix the health care system and that he won't wreck the federal budget in doing so.

It doesn't have to wreck the budget. It's just that bush sucks at math and sucks at helping people. I cannot believe that people actually listen to him and believe him. god help the schools in this country that turn out such dummies.

Read the rest here. It's just pitiful and do read the article about the 143 billion tax cuts to corporations. If this isn't a George Orwell Novel, I don't know what is.

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