Not sure what this is about but
it sure looks interesting. .
Must
Read (with footnotes) and Must See "The Story of Stuff". Billed by one
viewer as kind of a shorter more immediate version of "An Inconvenient Truth",
this ties together a lot of interesting and suppressed observations of the world
and the United States. See it here:
Must Read
piece called the "Bipartisan
Zombies" by Digby. This is the also the problem with
Obama's "Let's just get
along" approach. The other side is radical and extreme. They hate civil
governance and all notions of fairness. They have to be fought as Edwards has
said. An excerpt:
The
idea among these Village elders is that only through bipartisan cooperation
can we "get anything done." Well,
if bipartisanship is defined like this, I
suppose they are right:
As Congress stumbles toward Christmas, President Bush is
scoring victory after victory over his Democratic adversaries. He:
Beat back domestic spending increases.
Thwarted an expansion of children's health coverage.
Defeated tax increases.
Managed to uphold a pods storage facility in DC and another pods storage
facility in Upstate N.Y
for storage.
The storage units or pods storageUPack
were used for storage as well as military means.
Won Iraq war funding.
Pushed Democrats toward shattering their pledge not to add to the federal
deficit with new tax cuts or rises in mandatory spending.
[...]
"The Democrats are learning this isn't the early 1970s, when the Republican
Party was Gerald Ford and 140 of his friends," said Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole,
chairman of the National Republican
Congressional Committee. "There are 201
of us, and we will be heard."
Recall
that the president's approval rating hovers at 30% and the rating of the is
GOP minority in congress far lower. It appears to me that they know very well
how to "get things done" not only on a purely partisan basis but with more
than 70% of the country disapproving of their actions. They don't need no
stinkin' bipartisanship.
Must Read by
Glenn Greenwald. This goes back to the masses as "little people" argument. An
excerpt:
And
thus we have a perfect oligarchical system in which, literally, our most
powerful and well-connected elite are free to break the law with impunity,
exempt from any consequences. While exempting themselves, these same figures
impose increasingly Draconian "law and order" solutions on the masses to
ensure that even small infractions of the law prompt vigorous prosecution and
inflexible, lengthy prison terms.
As Matt
Stoller
recently noted in an excellent post on the bipartisan orthodoxies that are
untouchable in political debates, "there are 1 million people put in jail
for doing what Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George Bush have done" (buying
and consuming illegal drugs) and "2 million people are in prison in America,
by far the highest total of any other country in the world." It's almost
impossible for the non-rich to defend themselves effectively against
government accusations of criminality, and judges have increasingly less
sentencing discretion to avoid imposing harsh jail terms. Punishment for
crimes is for the masses only, not for members in good standing of our
political and corporate establishment.
Where
our political elite break the law, our leading media stars and pundits fulfill
their central purpose by dutifully arguing that establishment figures who have
broken the law have done
nothing wrong and deserve
protection,
even our
gratitude, when they do so. In the
view
of our establishment, even mere civil liability -- never mind criminal
punishment -- is
deeply unfair when
imposed on lawbreaking corporations, as we see in the "debate" over
telecom immunity.
Simplified Legislation Offers Money to Jurisdictions Who Wish to Move to
Paper Ballots, Optional Audits...
Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) is trying again. After learning a lesson or two, from
his failed attempt to push an unpopular Election Reform bill (HR811) through
Congress, he's scaling back in hopes of getting something passed that may
help bring accountability to the 2008 election cycle.
The latest version of the bill, coming in at a relatively slim 20 pages, is
available here [PDF].
We certainly applaud the effort in general, and note that it mirrors some of
the simple, doable-by-'08 initiatives we've been speaking with a few folks
in Congress about behind the scenes.In brief, the bill we've been
discussing, with several Congressional offices, after common ground
discussions with a number of EI advocates, a representative from the
National Association of Counties (NaCO) and even a Republican who had
initially worked on the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), but disliked the
resulting bill, would call for the following:
Money to states and/or counties who wish to move to paper ballot systems.A
requirement that all voters be asked before voting if they wish to vote on
paper (and that those paper ballots actually be counted before unofficial
tallies are released to the media).Grant money to further study disability
voting technology and hand-counting systems.Restrictions to no more than one
DRE per polling place to marginally meet HAVA's mandate for voters with
disabilities.
Holt's new bill would do a few, if not all of those things.
In his run at it this time, his bill would simply offer federal funding for
jurisdictions who wish to move to paper ballots (that's good), and also
offer money to help pay for post-election audits of those ballots...if they
choose to do so. It also sets aside money for study of disability voting
technology, as we'd also recommended.
Perhaps he has become a bit too timid after his previous unfortunate
experience. Though the bill has not yet been introduced officially --- so
language is not yet finalized, thus we'll hold full fire until we see the
final product --- the audits recommended in his bill would be optional. As
well, there are currently no requirements in his bill to mandate that
Election Officials actually count those paper ballots, paid for with federal
dollars, before releasing unofficial vote tallies to the media. That last is
no small point (just ask Al Gore or Christine Jennings).
Related: More Proof that the 2004
election was stolen.
Quick note: when you destroy the ballots
so that you can't make a full recount what should you conclude about the
truthiness of the election results?
For some
reason our fine alt weekly paper the City Paper dropped the cartoon strip Tom
the Dancing Bug, which can usually be found buried in their classifieds section.
While it hasn't been absolutely hilariously funny as of late Ruben's worst is
still funnier than Derf. And his best, especially his rare social and political
commentary, is as good as it gets. Here he is talking about this wonderful new
group known as the "science racists" ("Look, I hate you, but it's all scientific
don't you see old boy..."), represented most ably by
Gene Expression although it seems more
moderate of late now that my
old nemesis Godless
Capitalist (Who rooted against the Ethan Hawke character in Gattaca...) no
longer writes for them. I think white folks should participate in the
experiment....Update: The geniuses at Gene Expression have altered the original
GC post to show html text. They forgot to sweep away Google cache though, so
here is Godless
again. Aren't they proud of one of their past contributors? Can't imagine
why not he was so right about the Iraq War especially with his high IQ and
all....I wrote a response to that by the way which I'll think I'll repost. Some
of my best writing...
Let's say, for a moment, that you
took a good look at the situation here in the US and you think its time to
leave, kind of like Peter Drucker and other prescient Jews who left Germany in
the 30s. You're on a no fly list and you're pretty sure you're being watched and
you're absolutely certain that when the Blackwater death squads hit the street
after the next natural or manufactured "shock" they'll be knocking on your door
and it won't be to socialize. So you've thought about making a move to Canada.
Seems like a nice place.
Well, think again. These guys don't want "youse" to leave.
Nice guys.
Two peace activists were recently denied entry into Canada,
now run by a conservative. Jim Hightower has the story. Yes, you should find
this frightening. At a certain point, as Naomi Wolfe points out in one of her
talks about the signs of fascism, Jews weren't allowed to leave. They weren't
stopped from leaving because the Germans liked them. In fact, the Germans had
other plans for the Jews as history has shown us. And more than likely there are
similar Gitmo/concentration camp plans for dissenters. Not a good sign.
Dec. 25
Video Showdown
Special: Peanuts Theme with Christmas Lights versus South Park's Merry Fucking
Christmas. And so it begins...
And here's a special Greg Palast
Christmas Story. You can see this story on Democracy Now this Thursday I
believe. I highlighted the notable parts.
Good and Evil at the Center of
the Earth: A Quechua
Christmas Carol by
Greg Palast
December 24th, 2007
[Quito]
I don't know what the hell seized me. In the middle of an hour-long interview
with the President of Ecuador, I asked him about his father.
I'm not
Barbara Walters. It's not the kind of question I ask.
He hesitated. Then said, "My father was unemployed.
He paused. Then added, "He took a little drugs to the
States... This is called in Spanish a mula [mule]. He passed four years in the
states- in a jail.
He continued. "I'd never talked about my father before."
Apparently he hadn't. His staff stood stone silent, eyes
widened.
Correa's dad took that frightening chance in the 1960s, a
time when his family, like almost all families in
Ecuador, was destitute.
Ecuador was the original "banana republic" - and the price of bananas had
hit the floor. A million desperate Ecuadorans, probably a tenth of the entire
adult population, fled to the USA anyway they could.
"My mother told us he was working in the States."
His father, released from prison, was deported back to
Ecuador. Humiliated, poor, broken, his father, I learned later, committed
suicide.
At the end of our formal interview, through a doorway
surrounded by paintings of the pale plutocrats who once ruled this difficult
land, he took me into his own Oval Office. I asked him about an odd-looking
framed note he had on the wall. It was, he said, from his daughter and her grade
school class at
Christmas time. He translated for me.
"We are writing to remind you that in
Ecuador there are a lot of very poor children in the streets and we ask
you please to help these children who are cold almost every night.
It was kind of corny. And kind of sweet. A smart display
for a politician.
Or maybe there was something else to it.
Correa is one of the first dark-skinned men to win election
to this Quechua and mixed-race nation. Certainly, one of the first from the
streets. He'd won a surprise victory over the richest man in
Ecuador, the owner of the biggest banana plantation.
Doctor Correa, I should say, with a Ph.D in
economics earned in
Europe. Professor Correa as he is officially called - who, until
not long ago, taught at the
University of Illinois.
And
Professor Doctor Correa is one tough character. He told George Bush to take the
US military base and stick it where the equatorial sun don't shine. He told the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which held Ecuador's finances by
the throat, to go to hell. He ripped up the "agreements" which his predecessors
had signed at financial gun point. He told the
Miami bond vultures that were charging
Ecuador usurious interest, to eat their bonds. He said We are not going
to pay off this debt with the hunger of our people. Food first, interest
later. Much later. And he meant it.
It was a
stunning performance. I'd met two years ago with his predecessor, President
Alfredo Palacio, a man of good heart, who told me, looking at the secret
IMF agreements I showed him, "We cannot pay this level of debt. If we do, we are
DEAD. And if we are dead, how can we pay?" Palacio told me that he would explain
this to
George Bush and
Condoleezza Rice and the World Bank, then headed by
Paul Wolfowitz. He was sure they would understand. They didn't. They cut
off
Ecuador at the knees.
But
Ecuador didn't fall to the floor. Correa, then Economics Minister,
secretly went to
Hugo Chavez Venezuela's president and obtained emergency financing.
Ecuador survived.
And
thrived. But Correa was not done.
Elected
President, one of his first acts was to establish a fund for the Ecuadoran
refugees in America - to give them loans to return to
Ecuador with a little cash and lot of dignity. And there were other
dragons to slay. He and Palacio kicked US oil giant
Occidental Petroleum out of the country.
Correa STILL wasn't done.
I'd returned from a very wet visit to the rainforest - by
canoe to a Cofan
Indian village in the
Amazon where there was an epidemic of childhood cancers. The indigenous
folk related this to the hundreds of open pits of oil sludge left to them by
Texaco Oil, now part of
Chevron, and its partners. I met the Cofan's chief. His three year old
son swam in what appeared to be contaminated water then came out vomiting blood
and died.
Correa had gone there too, to the rainforest, though
probably in something sturdier than a canoe. And President Correa announced that
the company that left these filthy pits would pay to clean them up.
But it's not just any company he was challenging.
Chevron's largest oil tanker was named after a long-serving member of its
Board of Directors, the Condoleezza. Our Secretary of State.
The Cofan have sued Condi's corporation, demanding the oil
company clean up the crap it left in the jungle. The cost would be roughly $12
billion. Correa won't comment on the suit itself, a private legal action. But if
there's a verdict in favor of Ecuador's citizens, Correa told me, he will make
sure
Chevron pays up.
Is he kidding? No one has ever made an oil company pay for
their slop. Even in the USA, the Exxon Valdez case drags on to its 18th year.
Correa is not deterred.
He told me he would create an international tribunal to
collect, if necessary. In retaliation, he could hold up payments to US companies
who sue
Ecuador in US courts.
This is hard core. No one - NO ONE - has made such a threat
to Bush and Big Oil and lived to carry it out.
And, in an office tower looking down on
Quito, the lawyers for
Chevron were not amused. I met with them.
"And its the only case of cancer in the world?
How many cases of children with cancer do you have in the States?" Rodrigo
Perez, Texaco's top lawyer in
Ecuador was chuckling over the legal difficulties the Indians would have
in proving their case that Chevron-Texaco caused their kids' deaths. "If there
is somebody with cancer there, [the Cofan parents] must prove [the deaths were]
caused by crude or by petroleum industry. And, second, they have to prove that
it is OUR crude which is absolutely impossible. He laughed again. You have to
see this on film to believe it.
The oil company lawyer added, "No one has ever proved
scientifically the connection between cancer and crude oil." Really? You could
swim in the stuff and you'd be just fine.
The Cofan had heard this before. When
Chevron's Texaco unit came to their land the the oil men said they could
rub the crude oil on their arms and it would cure their ailments. Now Condi's
men had told me that crude oil doesnt cause cancer. But maybe they are right.
I'm no expert. So I called one. Robert F Kennedy Jr., professor of Environmental
Law at
Pace University, told me that elements of crude oil production - benzene,
toluene, and xylene, "are well-known carcinogens." Kennedy told me he's seen
Chevron-Texaco's ugly open pits in the
Amazon and said that this toxic dumping would mean jail time in the USA.
But it
wasn't as much what the Chevron-Texaco lawyers said that shook me. It was the
way they said it. Childhood cancer answered with a chuckle. The
Chevron lawyer, a wealthy guy, Jaime Varela, with a blond bouffant
hairdo, in the kind of yellow chinos you'd see on country club links, was beside
himself with delight at the impossibility of the legal hurdles the Cofan would
face. Especially this one:
Chevron had pulled all its assets out of
Ecuador. The Indians could win, but they wouldn't get a dime. "What about
the chairs in this office?" I asked. Couldn't the Cofan at least get those?
"No," they laughed, the chairs were held in the name of the law firm.
Well, now
they might not be laughing. Correa's threat to use the power of his Presidency
to protect the Indians, should they win, is a shocker. No one could have
expected that. And Correa, no fool, knows that confronting
Chevron means confronting the full power of the Bush Administration. But
to this President, it's all about justice, fairness. "You [Americans] wouldn't
do this to your own people," he told me. Oh yes we would, I was
thinking to myself, remembering Alaska's Natives.
Correa's
not unique. He's the latest of a new breed in
Latin America. Lula, President of
Brazil,
Evo Morales, the first Indian ever elected President of
Bolivia,
Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela. All "Leftists," as the press tells us. But all have something
else in common: they are dark-skinned working-class or poor kids who found
themselves leaders of nations of dark-skinned people who had forever been ruled
by an elite of bouffant blonds.
When I was in
Venezuela, the leaders of the old order liked to refer to Chavez as, "the
monkey." Chavez told me proudly, "I am negro e indio" - Black and
Indian, like most Venezuelans. Chavez, as a kid rising in the ranks of the
blond-controlled armed forces, undoubtedly had to endure many jeers of "monkey."
Now, all over
Latin America, the "monkeys" are in charge.
And they are unlocking the economic cages.
Maybe the mood will drift north. Far above the equator, a
nation is ruled by a blond oil company executive. He never made much in oil -
but every time he lost his money or his investors' money, his daddy, another oil
man, would give him another oil well. And when, as a rich young man out of
Philips Andover Academy, the wayward youth tooted a little blow off the bar,
daddy took care of that too. Maybe young George got his powder from some guy up
from
Ecuador.
I know
this is an incredibly simple story. Indians in white hats with their dead kids
and oil millionaires in black hats laughing at kiddy cancer and playing musical
chairs with oil assets.
But maybe
it's just that simple. Maybe in this world there really is Good and Evil.
Maybe Santa will sort it out for us, tell us who's been
good and who's been bad. Maybe Lawyer Yellow Pants will wake up on
Christmas Eve staring at the ghost of
Christmas Future and promise to get the oil sludge out of the Cofan's
drinking water.
Or maybe we'll have to figure it out ourselves. When I met
Chief Emergildo, I was reminded of an evening years back, when I was way the
hell in the middle of nowhere in the Prince William Sound, Alaska, in the
Chugach Native village of Chenega. I was investigating the damage done by
Exxon's oil. There was oil sludge all over Chenega's beaches. It was
March 1991, and I was in the home of village elder Paul Kompkoff on the island's
shore, watching CNN. We stared in silence as "smart" bombs exploded in
Baghdad and Basra.
Then Paul said to me, in that slow, quiet way he had,
"Well, I guess we're all Natives now."
Well, maybe we are. But we don't have to be, do we?
Maybe we can take some guidance from this tiny nation at
the center of the earth. I listened back through my talk with President Correa.
And I can assure his daughter that she didn't have to worry that her dad would
forget about "the poor children who are cold" on the streets of
Quito.
Because the Professor Doctor is still one of them.
For a copy of Palast's prior reports from
Venezuela for BBC and Democracy Now, get "The
Assassination of Hugo Chavez," on DVD, filmed by award-winning
videographer Richard Rowley.
Dec. 23
Looks like CIGNA murdered this
girl by delaying much needed care. They've done it before but this could be a
tipping point event. They're murderers who use spreadsheets instead of knives
and guns and they kill many many more people. How I hate the insurance
companies. Links
here and
here.
Somewhat Related: Wexler
argues that if we're going to move on our issues like health care for all this
term (instead of playing out the clock and hoping that the democratic congress
can expand while doing nothing to challenge mr 25 percent (not a winning
strategy as we'll probably discover)), we need impeachment as a lever. I'm
quoting the whole thing here. Add your name to those calling for impeachment
here.
I was serving in
Congress and on the Judiciary Committee for the ridiculous and politically
motivated impeachment hearings of President Clinton. During that witch hunt Newt
Gingrich, Tom Delay, and Ken Starr wasted a year and a half on investigations
and hearings about President Clinton's personal relations. However, this
attempted coup d'etat by Republicans against President Clinton was not and
should not be the standard of impeachment that was enshrined by the Founders in
our Constitution.
First, impeachment hearings are only proper when significant allegations exist
that the President or Vice-President, or others civil officers, committed
actions within their official duties that constitute 'High Crimes and
Misdemeanors.' The allegations against Clinton involving a personal affair -
never reached this threshold. The serious charges against Cheney involve alleged
crimes that are central to his duties of Vice-President; namely war and peace,
the widespread violations of civil liberties, and the security of the United
States and our covert agents.
Unlike the show trial put on by Republicans against President
Clinton, a proper impeachment hearing would involve a fair and objective
presentation of the facts without hyperbole or political gamesmanship. The hard
evidence that is presented at the hearings will be judged fully both by Congress
and the American people. The evidence alone will determine the outcome, and if
it is determined that Vice President Cheney committed "High Crimes and
Misdemeanors" he should be properly impeached and put on trial before the
Senate.
After the Democratic Party regained control of Congress, many myself included
thought that it might be possible to meet President Bush half-way on the large
issues facing our nation. Unfortunately, Bush has been nothing more than an
ideological obstacle. He has vetoed stem cell research. He has vetoed efforts to
bring our troops home from Iraq. He vetoed children's health care. So, the idea
that we are somehow inhibiting Congress from passing our agenda by holding
impeachment hearings unfortunately is a false argument.
Instead, I believe that we can both live up to our Constitutional obligation by
holding hearings and pass a Democratic agenda. If President Bush perceives that
the Democratic Congress is weak and unwilling to aggressively push our agenda
he will continue to veto legislation, such as children's health care that is
supported by a majority of Americans. The only way to move a progressive
Democratic agenda is by acting through strength and following through on our
core principles. A Congress willing to stand up to the abuses of the Bush
Administration through impeachment hearings will demonstrate a strength of will
that will more likely convince Bush to accommodate on issues such as Iraq,
health care, and energy and environmental issues.
Related: Daniel Dennett at
this year's Beyond Belief conference, which I'm waiting to see more of on
Youtube.
More related: Big
Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett roundtable. Features incredible quotes and
arguments.
And thank goodness I'm not
religious because that leaves me free to lust after the
galactic
ally hot women of Star Trek. Two Three I liked include
Yvonne Craig of Batgirl (Batgirrl!)
fame:
and winner of my fantasy date and or execution in alien combat
area is bad actress in silver:
and oh yeah I'll give you something "fascinating" to examine
(cue less than subtle Andrew Dice Clay reaction shot/"oh" sound):
Dec. 19
If you can find it, the new issue of
World War III is
outstanding. Here's a question: if you're doing a radical left wing comic and
you probably lose money selling it for five bucks, why don't you just give it
away, perhaps with google ads, on the Internet? I might email that question to
the publishers.
I still think that John Edwards is the best progressive
choice--who actually has a shot at winning-- we can get for the presidency.
Here's why I like him:
Obama: The system sucks, but I'm so awesome that it'll melt away before me.
Edwards: The system sucks, and we're gonna have to fight like hell to destroy
it.
Clinton: The system sucks, and I know how to work within it more than anyone.
Okay, who's best the melt guy or the insider? I'm going with
two. I wish Atrios would endorse Edwards now as opposed to that Chuck Penn
endorsement that he gave the day of the election that didn't do jack...
I suppose John Horus has one way
of initiating political change. Of course, you could use impeachment. Here's
the latest from Wexler. He's completely right. If you don't impeach Bush it
shows that there are different rules for the rich and the powerful. You would be
telling the public that we're all "little people",
that famous line in Bladerunner. Of course, after watching the dem
leadership in action I'm beginning to think that's the message they want to
send. One rule for us another for you rabble...
Dec. 14
New graphic novel that I would
hope Phantom of the Attic would carry, although I'm not sure I could afford it.
Review:
Housmans, London's 62-year-old "premier radical bookshop,"
was warm and animated on a rainy Friday night for the launch of a new graphic
novel entitled "Iraqi Oil for Beginners." Auspiciously, Hassan Jumaa, president
of the Iraq Federation of Oil Unions, was in London to speak at a conference and
made a quick appearance at the launch party. Jumaa also happens to be one of the
only sympathetic characters in the book.
Written and illustrated by Jon Sack, a young London-based American artist and
musician, the 31-page paperback comic book may feel light to the touch but is so
densely packed with information that it is more like a historical pamphlet,
albeit a droll and caustic one. "I wanted to sex up history a little," says
Sack, whose interest in the history of oil in the region was piqued several
years ago when he became involved in an organization called Corporate Pirates,
which keeps tabs on major corporations - in this case Western firms in Iraq.
He also spent time with Platform, a UK-based social and environmental
organization that carries out research on the oil industry. "I take myself as a
case in point," says Sack. "I had no idea of the role played by oil companies in
Mesopotamia and then Iraq." Funded by the human-rights group Voices in the
Wilderness, Sack began his project by piecing together accounts of the British
occupation of Iraq in the 1920s, which led to evident parallels with the
situation today. ...
Sack's graphic novel begins, perhaps inevitably, with the attacks of September
11, 2001, but then it quickly moves back 90 years to 1911, when Britain's Royal
Navy converted its warships from using coal to oil, a pivotal point and catalyst
for a growing and ever-increasing hunger for crude.
At the time, Britain had control of one of the first oil refineries in the world
in western Iran, then known as Persia. A few years later, in 1914, Britain
invaded and occupied Basra in southern Iraq. Sack leads his readers through the
complicated creation of oil companies, the British determination of Iraqi
borders after World War I and the maneuvering of multinational oil companies to
obtain concessions in Iraq. The remaining third of the comic book is dedicated
to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and the situation today, and in particular,
the impending oil law.
Related:
Other things I want for Christmas:
They're not dolls. They're action figures. You could even
spring for the special blood spattered edition. Black Summer is a must read by
the way.
What should be a pop hit in a fair
and loving world.
Star Trek
alumni
support the writer's guild strike. Brent Spiner is there, as well as Chekhov
and Sulu. Even my literary father figure Harlan Ellison was there. Harlan seems
to be slowly mutating into Yoda but I support the guild as he does. Related:
you can send a letter to the evil Hollywood
owners on behalf of
your fave show. I typed in Battlestar Gallactica.
I have to admit. This second describes my life fairly well, but I will fight
back...
Labels: comedy, music, yeh I ride the bus Mothafucka
posted by Philip Shropshire at 8:37 PM Comment (1)
Dec. 4
Dave Chappelle Vs. Jon Lajoie
I have to admit. This second describes my life fairly well, but I will fight
back...
Labels: comedy, music, yeh I ride the bus Mothafucka
posted by Philip Shropshire at 8:37 PM Comment (1)
Nov. 29
As everyone here probably knows,
Buffy's next season is now a comic. Angel's sixth season is now also a comic as
well. Looks pretty exciting. I liked the first issue and that's the shortest
review ever. Meanwhile, over at Dexter: they're going to pin everything on
Doakes? The sharp FBI guy doesn't notice that a blood spatter guy would prefer
blood trophies? I don't know. But very exciting...
But enough about vampires and serial
killers. Here's some really scary stuff:
Harman's bill contends that the United States will soon
have to deal with home grown terrorists and that something must be done to
anticipate and neutralize the problem. The act deals with the issue through the
creation of a congressional commission that will be empowered to hold hearings,
conduct investigations, and designate various groups as "homegrown terrorists."
The commission will be tasked to propose new legislation that will enable the
government to take punitive action against both the groups and the individuals
who are affiliated with them. Like Joe McCarthy and HUAC in the past, the
commission will travel around the United States and hold hearings to find the
terrorists and root them out. Unlike inquiries in the past where the activity
was carried out collectively, the act establishing the Violent Radicalization
and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Commission will empower all the members on
the commission to arrange hearings, obtain testimony, and even to administer
oaths to witnesses, meaning that multiple hearings could be running
simultaneously in various parts of the country. The ten commission members will
be selected for their "expertise," though most will be appointed by Congress
itself and will reflect the usual political interests. They will be paid for
their duties at the senior executive pay scale level and will have staffs and
consultants to assist them. Harman's bill does not spell out terrorist behavior
and leaves it up to the Commission itself to identify what is terrorism and what
isn't. Language inserted in the act does partially define "homegrown terrorism"
as "planning" or "threatening" to use force to promote a political objective,
meaning that just thinking about doing something could be enough to merit the
terrorist label. The act also describes "violent radicalization" as the
promotion of an "extremist belief system" without attempting to define
"extremist."
And:
As should be clear from the vagueness of the definitions,
the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act could easily
be abused to define any group that is pressuring the political system as
"terrorist," ranging from polygamists, to second amendment rights supporters,
anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, and peace
demonstrators. In reality, of course, it will be primarily directed against
Muslims and Muslim organizations. Given that, there is the question of who will
select which groups will be investigated by the roving commissions. There is no
evidence to suggest that there will be any transparent or objective screening
process. Through their proven access both to the media and to Congress, the
agenda will undoubtedly be shaped by the usual players including David Horowitz,
Daniel Pipes, Steve Emerson, and Frank Gaffney who see a terrorist hiding under
every rock, particularly if the rock is concealing a Muslim. They and their
associates will undoubtedly find plenty of terrorists and radical groups to
investigate. Many of the suspects will inevitably be "anti-American" professors
at various universities and also groups of Palestinians organized against the
Israeli occupation, but it will be easily to use the commission formula to sweep
them all in for examination.
And watch this from Naomi Wolf:
Time to get a gun. Time to get a passport. But who knows.
Perhaps I'll stay and fight. Where could you run to anyway.
I have to admit that these Prolefeeds are
very very good (Tip of the hat to Uncle Scam for pointing them out. Also at
Amsam:
Prolefeed does battle with the American Resistance Movement.). Don't forget
to read the scrolling bar at the bottom of the page because apparently women
love fascists. (Not entirely untrue from my experience...) Uh, these are jokes
by the way. I hope.
Apparently,
the Catholic League is telling people to stay away from the "Golden Compass".
So every atheist and non dogmatic person needs to shell out 8 bucks and go
watch the "Golden Compass". Plus, it looks like a good movie. I mean, I
watched the Chronicles. Its just an interesting imaginary story, Bill. Just
like the
Bible...
I have noticed that my virtual
girlfriend/daughter Agent Ska
has
responded to my snarky "Yer just votin' fer Hillary cuz' she's a girl! Nah!"
post,
now permalinked here. I will respond after I do my laundry. Or tomorrow.
Nov. 22
Actually, I probably won't buy
anything because I don't have any money but this is a nice effort.
Action update: MTV, the channel that markets itself to hip
youth, has decreed that our Buy Nothing Day public service spot "goes further
than we are willing to accept on our channels". Gangsta rap and sexualized,
semi-naked school girls are okay, but apparently not a burping pig talking about
consumption.
Art by
Joshua Middleton. I
always thought that cover was striking and wondered who drew it. Related: Alan
Moore's "Black Dossier" is out but it costs 30 bucks! That might have to wait
for Christmas.
Here's why I think Edwards is the
best choice for the presidency. I like and agree with his argument about there
being no difference between corporate democrats and corporate republicans and
that Hillary is certainly a corporate democrat. For example, the recruiting
class that Schumer and Rahmbo gave us in 2005 was a status quo class.
And a question for Agent Ska: how
will a President Hillary make your life better? She supported NAFTA for God's
sake. Now she supports that awful Peruvian trade bill...I'm not supporting
Barack as my primary choice because he's black. Are you supporting Hillary
because she's a girl, even though many of her policies will probably hurt you?
Do you want a society where its easier for companies to outsource the work
you're studying for in college to some farm in Bangalore? I'm definitely sensing
a "Look, its our time" vibe from a lot of women when it comes to Hillary even
though I'm certain that very little that's positive will come out of a person
who thinks lobbyists iz just plain folks. (See "oops. Our bad." ad below...)
More
on that awful Peruvian trade bill here at Eyes on Trade. This is the kind of
thing that a real media would be reporting on. Notice you don't see too many
frontpage stories about this from either of our money losing corporate media
dailies.
I enjoyed this season of Weeds. It
also looked like the cast is going to Pittsburgh or they're going to jail.
Perhaps both. I don't see how Dexter is avoiding jail either. The police are on
his trail. Doakes has stolen his "blood" trophies...does he live a life on the
run? Join Blackwater? Is called up by the reserves?
Nov. 13
THE RETURN OF VAST WASTELAND
I usually end up watching Dexter and
the Brotherhood back to back on Sunday night. Dexter tends to be the better show
while Brotherhood seems to be kind of a lighter Sopranos, except without the
glamor. You won't see Nancy Sinatra serenading anyone in "Brotherhood", although
you will see many former Sopranos alumni. But last Sunday night Brotherhood was
the better show. It featured a completely disturbing yuppie assassin and also
was one of the few shows I've seen that displays how caging lists could be used
in elections. It did get a few things wrong, though. Politician Tommy Caffee
(the house rep in the red tie above who you would think is the nice one but
you're always wondering (and who's played by yet not only a Brit, but apparently
an upper class Brit as well...what no Irish American actors who can play these
guys? Did anyone give the Baldwins or Carradines a call? Life is not fair...))
plays a democrat. But democrats have not been known to use caging lists.
Republicans tend to do that. The only truth this fiction reveals is that
white dems might not be all that upset when Republicans use those tactics to rob
minorities of their vote. However, I could tell they were dems because they did
show the slightest hint of shame at that dirty tactic and others that Tommy
pulled out. There was also, possibly, one other glitch when one of Tommy's
operatives starts challenging latino voters at the poll but makes sure to not mention that they can use a provisional ballot. From what we've
seen in Ohio
the provisional ballots would never be counted anyway.
Dexter has also been very entertaining this year. But I think
they did this particular plotline too early. This season's plotline involves the
discovery of all those bodies that Dexter has been dumping,
articulated in song here.
And he's being chased by a very capable FBI agent who's already figured out the
serial killer is in law enforcement. I don't know how Dexter gets out of this
one. Even if he kills the FBI agent everybody knows that it might be a cop, plus
Doakes, who luckily enough was kicked off the force before talking to the FBI
agent about this crazy theory that the serial killer is in law
enforcement...unless this is the last season. Then it makes sense. It's weird
seeing the show from the perspective of the killer. It's not unlike watching
Silence of the Lambs not from the Jodie Foster point of view but of one of the
killers...
I'm making a call: I think John Edwards is
the best choice for the presidency. I like Obama and I think he would make a
very capable president or vice president but his vote for that Peruvian free
trade deal, the scare talk on social security...of course, he might think
Hillary has wrapped it up and thinks this secures his rich guy money base back
in Illinois but still...I would probably vote for Hillary but this would be the
first election cycle in four years where I probably won't do any door to door
work for the dems if she gets the nomination...Unless the GOP nominee is Tanc or
Newt or somebody....
I just can't stand that "lobbyists is
people" line, which, appropriately enough, was turned into an ad by the Edwards
camp. Seen here in the "Oops. Our Bad" ad:
I forgive easily. I could have
let Hillary off the hook for supporting NAFTA, screwing up healthcare in 1993
and voting for the proto-fascist USA-Patriot Act. I could have overlooked her
Reaganesque cluelessness about the lives of ordinary people. (Reneging on her
"baby bond" proposal that Americans receive $5,000 at age 18, she now wants to
give everyone a 401(k) and have the government match it "up to $1,000." Thanks
to this windfall, she says, "they will be able to access it to go to college or
maybe they will be able to make that down payment on their first home." Lame
idea, obviously. What I want to know is: Where can you buy a house or a college
education for $1000? On the moon?)
A superhero killed the president this summer. Moments
later, a shocked White House press corps watched as John Horus, his gleaming
white-and-gold costume still soaked in blood, explained why. Because "the war in
Iraq is illegal and predicated on lies," because "our people and theirs are
dying for corporate gain," because of the "use of torture by our elected
authorities," and because the president "stole the last two elections," the most
powerful member of the Seven Guns could no longer "stand by while this
administration commits crimes." In response, a terrified government imposed
martial law, launching a nationwide manhunt for Horus' estranged teammates,
whose reactions to the act ranged from horror to sympathy.
One of the reasons I couldn't support
DeSantis or any republican is that the main way the GOP has won the last two
national presidential elections is by suppressing the black vote in both Ohio
and Florida. I guess that's a small and minor thing to local bloggers but to me
and about a half million dead Iraqis its kind of a point of contention. I could
never reward a party like that...(I would take a look at Ron Paul vs. Hillary.
He's a non factor if Edwards or Obama get the nomination...).
Not that I could blame anyone for
thinking that Luke Ravenstahl will be just an awful mayor. If he leaves office
as a national embarrassment we would be getting off light. I'll say this again:
he'll probably end up in jail or resigning before being sent to jail. He has the
arrogance of the Bush regime but not any of its get out of jail free
interpretative powers of the law.
I think the City of Pittsburgh
will survive.
Nov. 1
What Chris Dodd is
doing very cool but it does bring up the point that if it only takes one senator
to stop any particular bill then dems could stop the war in the US Senate. Where
is the principled Feingold on this? What's really stopping Barack or Hillary. I
mean, I guess this is why we own California and the west because no one
filibusters imperialist land grabs but still...
"Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut unwittingly exposed the Democrats' Big Lie on
Iraq: that they need support from Republicans to stop the war. In fact, any
senator can place a "hold" on any piece of legislation. They can even do it
anonymously if they're afraid of the political ramifications of their action!
So, the next time you hear on TV that the Democrats "need" 60 votes in the
Senate to override Bush's threatened veto, don't believe it. And write to the
network to demand an immediate correction."
Related: Not as angry as you might
think vagina monologues author makes
same point but she's
talking 40 senators. Just takes one.
Stunning new
John
Mclaughlin vids from July Crossroads guitar festival. You can sample them
here,here and
here. For years now J
Mac's electric guitar sound had become, well, wimpy and mushy. He was probably
hoping that Tony Mowad would play him (to no avail.). Here he seems to have
discovered his
Mahavishnu/Electric
Guitarist strat sound and he sounds Godlike. He's never sounded better and
this was recorded just a few months ago. Wow.
From Jamais Cascio's (of
Worldchanging fame...) weblog.
Related: Speaking of scary blood music technology that could certainly go
bad let us look no further than CMU 's Claytronics, seen
here and
here. I, for one, would like to wear such tech. And then quickly go about
Ruling the World. I would be a more than decent despot no doubt....This kind of
looks like Tranformers tech.
Interesting
article
about Afro Futurism (If you're a weirdo who cares about people like Chip
Delany and Steven Barnes and Octavia Butler and etc...), by way of Warren Ellis,
who has one of the best and wide ranging blogs on the Internets.
I'm adding the
Goddess to the blogroll. That would
make two local African American bloggers who write about something other than
hip hop or relationships in the Pittsburgh area. Woohoo. Related: I also
enjoyed her essay about the mayor's race. That micropayment idea looked
interesting. Luke's outreach to the black community is the same old "black face
in a high place" kind of stuff. For the record, I loathe both candidates. I
think Luke is incompetent and will likely end up in jail. I think decent people
don't affiliate with the GOP, world's worst party. Decent people resign from the
Republican Party, apologize for supporting NAFTA and giving money to Rick
Santorum, and run as an independent.
Some vintage Jack.
And great lettering. From this
great new site.
Nov. 1
What Chris Dodd is
doing very cool but it does bring up the point that if it only takes one senator
to stop any particular bill then dems could stop the war in the US Senate. Where
is the principled Feingold on this? What's really stopping Barack or Hillary. I
mean, I guess this is why we own California and the west because no one
filibusters imperialist land grabs but still...
"Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut unwittingly exposed the Democrats' Big Lie on
Iraq: that they need support from Republicans to stop the war. In fact, any
senator can place a "hold" on any piece of legislation. They can even do it
anonymously if they're afraid of the political ramifications of their action!
So, the next time you hear on TV that the Democrats "need" 60 votes in the
Senate to override Bush's threatened veto, don't believe it. And write to the
network to demand an immediate correction."
Related: Not as angry as you might
think vagina monologues author makes
same point but she's
talking 40 senators. Just takes one.
Stunning new
John
Mclaughlin vids from July Crossroads guitar festival. You can sample them
here,here and
here. For years now J
Mac's electric guitar sound had become, well, wimpy and mushy. He was probably
hoping that Tony Mowad would play him (to no avail.). Here he seems to have
discovered his
Mahavishnu/Electric
Guitarist strat sound and he sounds Godlike. He's never sounded better and
this was recorded just a few months ago. Wow.
From Jamais Cascio's (of
Worldchanging fame...) weblog.
Related: Speaking of scary blood music technology that could certainly go
bad let us look no further than CMU 's Claytronics, seen
here and
here. I, for one, would like to wear such tech. And then quickly go about
Ruling the World. I would be a more than decent despot no doubt....This kind of
looks like Tranformers tech.
Interesting
article
about Afro Futurism (If you're a weirdo who cares about people like Chip
Delany and Steven Barnes and Octavia Butler and etc...), by way of Warren Ellis,
who has one of the best and wide ranging blogs on the Internets.
I'm adding the
Goddess to the blogroll. That would
make two local African American bloggers who write about something other than
hip hop or relationships in the Pittsburgh area. Woohoo. Related: I also
enjoyed her essay about the mayor's race. That micropayment idea looked
interesting. Luke's outreach to the black community is the same old "black face
in a high place" kind of stuff. For the record, I loathe both candidates. I
think Luke is incompetent and will likely end up in jail. I think decent people
don't affiliate with the GOP, world's worst party. Decent people resign from the
Republican Party, apologize for supporting NAFTA and giving money to Rick
Santorum, and run as an independent.
Update on the music channel.
My music channel has over 2000 videos now. I call it the "Acid Jazz Channel" but
it really would be more accurate to describe it as the "Acid Jazz Search
Engine". I don't think I actually host any of those videos. I can honestly say
its better than any music channel on cable because music channels on cable don't
play music anymore. I guess they're not competitive. And if you actually like
acid jazz and trad jazz its the best music channel ever. I swear I've turned it
on just to check out a tune and I've just stared at if for three hours. Of
course, when you do all the programming there's little that sucks. Try the
widescreen version
here.
Anyway, try it out and please give feedback here. Oh, and if
anybody has some adds, say, some rare LTJ Bukem or Broadcast vids I missed
inform me at the link below.
Two
more vids from this
gifted Youtube director. Profiled earlier here. The first one I remixed and
added a different tune. His
original is here. It also makes me want to fuck Audrey Hepburn. Her being
"dead" wouldn't stop me. That's the kind of fella I am.
The second one features a song from The
Stone Roses, a band I wish had made more music.
Still the most underreported story of the decade: election
fraud. From Fitrakis and Wasserman by way of
Bradblog:
With record low approval ratings for the Bush/Cheney regime and the
albatross of an unpopular war hanging from the GOP's neck, do you think that a
Democratic presidential candidate will win the White House, get us out of Iraq,
and end our long national nightmare?
Think again the mighty election theft machine Karl Rove used to steal
the US presidency in 2000 and 2004 may be under attack, but it is still in place
for the upcoming 2008 election.
With his usual devious mastery, Rove has seized upon the national outrage
sparked by his electoral larceny and used it as smokescreen while he makes the
American electoral system even MORE unfair, and even EASIER to rig. Thus the
administration has fired federal attorneys when they would not participate in a
nationwide campaign to deny minorities and the poor their access to the polls.
It has spent millions of taxpayer dollars to install electronic voting machines
that can be "flipped" with a few keystrokes. And under the guise of "reforming"
our busted electoral system, it is setting us up for another presidential theft
in 2008.
Stunning new admissions from county election boards that
illegally destroyed voter records will almost certainly lead to new
convictions.
Thus it should come as no surprise that our exclusive investigations
into the firings of eight federal prosecutors who refused to execute Roves
plans for massive disenfranchisement of Democratic voters reveal a pattern of
illegalities and fraud aimed at reducing the number of minority, poor and young
voters at the core of Democratic support. In the wake of major news breaks, two
felony convictions have come from the rigging of the illegal Ohio 2004 vote
count and recount that gave George W. Bush a second illegitimate term. Stunning
new admissions from county election boards that illegally destroyed voter
records will almost certainly lead to new convictions. And the
multi-million-dollar electronic voting machine scam that made possible the
biggest electoral frauds in US history is under massive new attack, with key
states moving to scrap the machines altogether in a desperate attempt to restore
American democracy but with the job far from done.
Agent Ska, my virtual girlfriend
and/or my virtual daughter (its one of those...) discovers
solar sats. I wrote this in response:
"I think their
projections of 2050 make it unrealistic for energy purposes. We'll probably
develop better solar cells here on Earth with nanotech or biotech (artificial
venter created lifeforms) fuel sources that would do the job within the next
decade. What would really make it feasible is to create cheaper lift launch
costs. The reason it costs so much now is that it costs a lot to put things into
orbit. If it became cheaper to put things into orbit you could do solar sats
tomorrow. Therefore, we should all be rooting for Burt Rutan and hope that
something cheaper results from the private space age.."
Agent Ska noted that you'll see her on the other side of the
moon. She might find some interest in
this Burt Rutan interview. Burt might just get her a ride. Here's the part I
liked:
What will
spaceflight look like a century from now?
A century is a
relatively short period of time. Let me stick my neck out a little bit further
and say that in 300 or 400 years, a large majority of people will go to a planet
and not return back to the Earth. We will colonize. Lewis and Clark went out and
back. But most of the people who followed them went to California and stayed
there. In a hundred years, I believe you will see such an enormous reduction in
the costs of transportation around our solar system that there will be a lot of
travel. Id like to see affordable transportation into space in my lifetime.
Trust me. A lot of us would take that one
way ticket. "What? A society out beyond the orbit of Pluto with elected leaders
that pay attention to the constitution, which includes
direct democracy...I'm
outta here..."
Why someone other than Richard
Dawkins is
a mean ol' angry atheist. I'm probably going to permalink her. An excerpt:
I'm
angry -- enraged -- at the priests who molest children and tell them it's God's
will. I'm enraged at the Catholic Church that consciously, deliberately,
repeatedly, for years, acted to protect priests who molested children, and
consciously and deliberately acted to keep it a secret, placing the Church's
reputation as a higher priority than, for fuck's sake, children not being
molested. And I'm enraged that the Church is now trying to argue, in court, that
protecting child-molesting priests from prosecution, and shuffling those priests
from diocese to diocese so they can molest kids in a whole new community that
doesn't yet suspect them, is a
Constitutionally protected form of free religious expression.
Read the whole embittered angry thing as they say.
A book that probably won't get
reviewed (unless its a pan) by any of our two daily papers but you can find
information
here and
here and
here and here and
here. Video
here and here.
So why should this be brought up? I think it should be brought
up because, well, here's a crazy theory. Bear with me. One of the shocking
things I've seen is the aftermath of the November 2006 elections. It was clear
that the American public voted against the war. Its also clear to me that if the
Democrats actually end the war
(by withholding funding
which they can definitely do) they would probably hold the presidency and the
congress for the next 25 years, maybe longer. It would cause a generational
shift toward the less ruthless business party, which might be incrementally
better. Afterall, the Clinton years gave us the Internets. True, if they had
known how important it was I probably couldn't afford to be writing these words
and I would be as likely to have a platform on the internet as I would be to
hosting my own show on cable television but anyway...
Yet that's not what the democrats have done. I suppose it
could be just a dark tactic whereby they think that as the war stalls and burns
people will vote democratic party as a reaction. Of course, if people see no
difference in the parties on the war it would make the republicans competitive
again. And of course, as we've seen the republicans don't actually have to win
to be competitive, just close enough so that the courts can call it in their
favor. They
can destroy the evidence later and throw roadblocks into reform. Its not
like the traditional media would write
about it.
Well, there is an uncomfortable theory out there, first
written about by Alexander Cockburn to his credit. He thought that the Dem
recruiters, Schumer in the Senate and Rahm Emmanual (who once volunteered to
serve in the Israeli army. Here's a thought experiment: say that Obama once
tried to join the Cuban army where would he be politically...? Really. Think
about it.) were
deliberately recruiting pro war dems. Both Schumer and Rahm, who some have
said is Mossad's man in DC, are Jewish. What if they're Jewish and think that
the war benefits Israel.
Here's another thought experiment: Let's just assume for a
moment that they're more loyal to Israeli foreign policy interests than American
interests, specifically the American interest of ending this war. What would
they do. How would they behave. They would, and this is just wild speculation,
recruit democrats to win back the house and senate but not democrats who have
the common sense and decency to withhold funding for the war. Corporatist DLC
power elite dems. That would be the deal. We would know that's the deal because
democrats won't have ended the war even though its in their power to do so.
Here's a more frightening thought experiment: what if they
wanted to thank the republicans. Why would you want to harm the party that
enthusiastically spills blood for Israel (and oil reserves but that would be
secondary to the Israelis, unless they wanted a cut but who knows...). You
wouldn't want a handy party like that eviscerated. In fact, you would do
everything in your power to keep them viable. Going slow on ending the war might
just do the trick. A Hillary nomination gives the Republicans a pulse for the
presidency. Blur the distinctions. That means that everything just keeps getting
worse.
A wrench in the works would be the creation of a viable well
funded progressive third party. Let's hope Cindy Sheehan, the only candidate I
know that wants AIPAC out of congress, widens her efforts.
Must Read
David Rees. I think the
one on top sort of explains why some of us grimace whenever politicians blame
the Iraqis, who we bombed and killed by the thousands, for the current
situation.
"Craig Venter, a
DNA researcher that had a part in deciphering the human genome, has stuck
together 580,000 base pairs of genetic code to create an entirely new and alien
chromosome. Based around the Mycoplasma genitalium bacterium (pictured in all
its primordial glory), the new chromosome is then implanted into a living cell
and renamed as Mycoplasma laboratorium -- don't you just love science jokes? The
new "life form" is reliant on the host cell for replication and metabolism so
it's not exactly entirely synthetic, but as the DNA is different, it is
effectively an artificial form of life. Sounds like the human race's really
doomed now: ultimately, all we're doing is
setting the robots up with a tag team."
Say it with me together now: "And nothing could possibly go
wrong." Now, for the contrast and compare part. Remember a novel by Greg Bear
called "Blood Music"?
Here's the Wikipedia synopsis of
Blood Music:
"In the novel, renegade biotechnologist Vergil Ulam creates
simple biological computers based on his own
lymphocytes.
Faced with orders from his nervous employer to destroy his work, he injects them
into his own body, intending to smuggle the 'noocytes' (as he calls them) out of
the company and work on them elsewhere. Inside Ulam's body, the noocytes
multiply and evolve rapidly, altering their own genetic material and quickly
becoming self-aware. The nanoscale civilization they construct soon begins to
transform Ulam, then others, until eventually assimilating most of the biosphere
of North America. This civilization, which incorporates both the evolved
noocytes and recently-assimilated conventional humans, is eventually forced to
abandon the normal plane of existence. The reason for the noocytes' inability to
remain in this reality is somewhat related to the strong
anthropic principle. This is one of the more extreme cases of the
technological singularity found in
science fiction literature."
Talk amongst yourselves.
Oct. 2
Good
job Mike Tedesco. I wish him all the success in this. Mike just consistently
comes up with good and doable ideas.
In the very short feature I call
"Decent Americans Acting Decently" (also see above post) Cindy Sheehan wrote a
piece called: "Pro
Democracy Means Anti-Fascism". Here's what she thinks the next congress
should do:
There are just a few measures that we can use to stop this
slide and Rowthorn articulates what has become an important part of my platform.
Only vote for candidates that promise the following things for president, or any
other federal elective offices:
* Repeal the Patriot Act
* Repeal No Child Left Behind
* Scale down the Department of Homeland Security and rename it so it loses its
Nazi
tone and is brought under civilian control.
* Restore habeas corpus and close all torture camps by repealing the Military
Commissions Act.
* Repeal all contracts with paid mercenary killer companies.
* Restore the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
* Repeal all BushCo-Presidential directives (especially Directive 51) and
review all laws that contain signing statements.
* Restore the 4th Amendment by enforcing warrants for spying on Americans.
* Impeach Bush and Cheney-post presidency so they cant receive federal
benefits.
* Bring all troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan and review military needs
for other bases around the world.
* Repeal all free trade agreements.
* Kick AIPAC and other lobbyists out of the halls of Congress where they have
no business.
We have a token libertarian over at
Amsat (Trevor. See Post below.). He questions the wisdom of Marx. Of course, I
find that Marx works best when you look at his writings and writings of his
followers as accurate criticism of how capitalism works. Not necessarily as a
system to follow. In fact, hardcore capitalists I'm told read Marx for that
very same reason: to better understand how capitalism works. I suppose its not
much different than when the old bad
East
Germans used to read 1984 for tips on what to name their organizations and
rooms and so forth.
I just find that Marx's description of the ills of
Capitalism to be pretty much right on the mark.
So, in today's episode of "Sure, I'm a Marxist" contrast
this statement written by Lenin:
With this Youtube video about the
Real News. It just strikes me as being a correct view of how the press
works in a capitalist society. That's why I read Marx. I want to understand
how the world works.
The people I work with at
American Samizdat. When the roundups occur
they will become the "usual suspects". Need to go add some posts over there.
current american samizdat harbingers september 2007
Yet another edition of My Big Fat
Evil American Empire.
Sy Hersh says we'll bomb Iran. We'll do it because we're evil. Evil evil
evil evil evil. As an American I like to pull the wings off flies. I strangle
kittens because I can. It's who we are as Americans don't you know...
The important thing about the
Stewart
interview with the Bolivian president is that you see that he's a decent
genuine fella who wants to help his people and he's usually the kind of guy who
we kill or his plane goes down unexpectedly, after we accidently put a bomb in
it. That's a little harder if you actually get to see him on the television. But
not impossible as we'll probably find out. For more on how we kill latin
american (and african american leaders for that matter) leaders who want to help
the people see this youtube
vid, and this one
and this one.
And Bolivia is mentioned below. Apparently, Chavez helped pay
off their IMF Depts. More about IMF debt here. Done with toons.
Big news on how they'll steal your
election in 2008 front. One: The Supreme Court will be taking a look at voter id
laws or as I call it "Jim Crow 2007". Be very afraid. Two: It looks as if
caging techniques are still the
rage. (Also here.)
The republican tactic is to suppress the black vote at any and all costs. Not to
negotiate with us. This is why I hold a grudge against the Republicans. I can't
vote for them. I can't support them.
And
a talented Youtube director. As I suspected: He runs a design company. Check
out this very very sexy vid (features Selma Hayek in a memorable scene...) he
did for Cat Power's Lived in Bars. Better than most of Cat Power's
professionally produced vids. The Pixies vid is good (that's below) is cool too.
Those vids are here.
And folks are getting fed up with the
dems. There's
this from Booman which kind of sums up our frustration. We have to create a
Third Way.
What the hell did we elect Democrats for if this is what
we are getting in return for our votes? Everyday on
numerous blogs I see the frustration of those of us who supported Democrats to
the hilt in the last 3 election cycles with our activism, money, blogging and
volunteering for Democratic campaigns around the country. Without us, it's
safe to say the Democratic victories last Fall would have been much less
substantial in the House, and likely would not have happened at all in the
Senate. So what gives? Why are our voices and concerns being dismissed and
ridiculed by the very people we worked so hard to bring to power? As one of
the people who has dedicated myself to helping Democrats win elections,
running interference for them on all the blogs to which I post regularly,
contributing money I don't have and working to ensure that every vote gets
counted (I was in Cleveland with Election Protection in 2004), I feel entitled
to some answers that aren't the same old tired line of we're doing the best we
can, be patient, blah, blah, blah. Because frankly I and much of the
progressive blogospheres readership don't buy the excuses we are being
offered, as the extremely low approval ratings for Congress (primarily among
Democrats if you break our the numbers) makes clear.
How a
buncha right wingers almost
took over the country in the 30s. Now, of course, they put in (a) Clinton to
turn the country right, bribe both parties, rig the machines and bribe the dems
to look the other way or else
their planes might go down and, finally, make sure that the viable
presidential nominees are down with what Bertram Gross called "friendly
fascism". It will have diversity but
corporations will still run everything. Oh, and make sure that Kerry is on
the team and won't sue over 2004 so you can use the same tricks in 2008.
And taser that guy who asked Kerry the very logical question as to why he
conceded so quickly...I said taser him and take away that awful book. Tell our
minions in the corporate media that we don't talk about stolen elections. That's
minor stuff.
Speaking of Friendly Fascism:
This is a prescient book first published in the 80s.
"Prescient" I sez. Would read more like a manual to the wrong people who I think
have read it.
What will happen if more ordinary people
should try to take over this baby and actually begin to make it their own? How
would the elites respond if the masses began to ask the elites to give much more
and gain much less-particularly when, under conditions of capitalist stagflation
and shrinking world power, the elites have less to give. Some radical
commentators claim that the powers that be would use their power to follow the
example of the classic fascists and destroy the democratic machinery. I agree
with Murray Levin that this would be stupid. I see it also as highly unlikely.
No First World Establishment is going to shatter machinery that, with a certain
amount of tinkering and a little bit of luck, can be profitably converted into a
sophisticated instrument of repression.
Indeed, the tinkering has already
started. Some of it is being undertaken by people for whom the Constitution is
merely a scrap of paper, a set of judicial decisions, and a repository of
rhetoric and precedents to be used by their high-paid lawyers and public
relations people. Some of it is being perpetrated by presidents and others who
have taken formal oaths to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the
United States." Sometimes knowingly, often unwittingly, both types of people
will spare no pains in preserving those parts of the written or unwritten
constitution that protect the rights of "corporate persons" while undermining,
attacking, or perverting those parts of the Constitution that promote the
welfare and liberties of the great majority of all other persons.
Speaking of Hillary, she's introduced
her health care plan which she described like mandatory auto insurance, which I
hate. At
Working Assets I left a comment here:
Horrible. This is the auto insurance standard where I'm
forced to buy coverage but the insurance industry doesn't have to lower rates
or offer competitive pricing. One of the reasons I don't owe a car now is that
I can't afford the insurance...the solution involves a not for profit
insurance company , not necessarily run by the government but not the same old
lobbyist suspects who Hillary thinks are just "people". I say it again.
Horrible. I can't wait for the day I can't afford my 200 dollar a week health
care premium and I'm thrown in jail...
I forgot to add that this a "Blame the Victim" approach to
healthcare. "You lazy proles! The problem is that you don't wanna pay fer nuthin'..."
Sept. 15
And yet another
sad edition of My Big Fat Evil American Empire. Hail Bush. Short summary
of the evil here from Undernews:
OBSERVER, UK - A survey of Iraqis,
released last week, claims that up to 1.2 million people may have died because
of the conflict in Iraq - lending weight to a 2006 survey in the Lancet that
reported similarly high levels.
More than one million deaths were already being suggested by anti-war
campaigners, but such high counts have consistently been rejected by US and UK
officials. The estimates, extrapolated from a sample of 1,461 adults around the
country, were collected by a British polling agency, ORB, which asked a random
selection of Iraqis how many people living in their household had died as a
result of the violence rather than from natural causes.
Previous estimates gave a range between 390,000 and 940,000, the most prominent
of which - collected by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and
reported in the Lancet in October 2006 - suggested 654,965 deaths.
by Philip Sherwell in New York and
Tim Shipman in Washington
You also need to
read this Ted
Rall article. Has a very nice observation about the people who make up your
modern press while he criticizes the dems spinelessness on the war:
Here's Rall's money shots so to speak:
Brian Knowlton,
The New York Times: Knowlton dutifully quoted Democratic Senator Joe Bidens
claim that there were political limits on his party, even with the
Congressional majority it has held since the November midterm elections. This
is the presidents war, [Biden] said. Unless we get 67 votes to override his
veto, theres nothing we can do to stop this war Not only did the Times fail
to call Biden on his brazen lie, it gave him the last word.
Youd think the
Democrats would want to end the Iraq War before their likely retaking of the
White House, but thats because youre a human being, not a politician.
Politicians are happy to dispatch hundreds of young American men and women to
certain death (along with thousands of Iraqis), if the bloodshed squeezes out an
extra half percentage point at the polls. Reid and Pelosi prefer to run against
a disastrous ongoing Republican war than point to a fragile Democratic-brokered
peace.
Why are so many
respected journalists parroting the Democratic party line? I suspect that
corporate media culture, rather than Judith Miller-style malfeasance, is largely
to blame.
Ink-stained
newsrooms have been replaced by bullpen offices indistinguishable from those of
banks or insurance companies. Reporters used to come from the working classes.
They distrusted politicians and businessmen, and politicians and businessmen
loathed them. Todays journalists are products of cookie-cutter journalism
schools. Because graduate schools rarely offer scholarships, few come from the
lower or middle classes. They look like businessmen. When they meet a
politician, they see a possible friend. They wear suits and ties. And when a
U.S. senator like Joe Biden feeds them a line of crap, they gobble it up.
Your contemplative
Sonny Sharrock song for Sunday.
Picture from Zack
"300 Sin City" Snyder's Watchmen. I have to admit that this pic of Rorschach
looks promising. Related: This is the
website it
comes from. Its dedicated to the movie. Even has a rundown of the major cast
players. I have to admit that Ozymandius looks right...More related:
The Iron Man trailer looks
good. Robert Downey really does bring the character to life. Looks
promising.
Jim Hightower
explains the mortgage crisis with
handy toons.
And if you recall (they'll be a quiz
later) Jim Hightower also explained why we're in Iraq and it's not about
democracy or "helping" the Iraqi people, unless you define helping as killing
about 600000 Iraqis. We're full of help over here. We're really there so that
our puppet goverment can pass something called the
Iraqi Oil Law, which Hightower
explained here. Or as I
described it earlier this is legalized plunder. Nobody talks about it, even the
dems. It would be nice if they said that we're above killing hundreds of
thousands of people and taking their stuff "christian" nation we are and all
that....
Whenever noted jazz police fascists like
Wynton Marsalis or Stanley Crouch talk about all that "bad" jazz that doesn't
meet their pre 1962 standard they usually refer to people like the late great
Joseph Zawinul. Unfortunately for them and yet fortunately for us Mr. Z
produced a lot of demanding world class work that the entirety of the
imagination/vision starved Marsalis clan will never ever touch in the forever
Kind of Blue continuum that they're hopelessly trapped in. (And what's sad is
that they don't realize its a trap.) Z even wrote better trad standards than
Wynton or what's a Marsalis tune that's as memorable as "Mercy Mercy Mercy", or
"Country Preacher"?
I still
can't believe a white dude from Austria wrote those tunes.
Zawinul understood that the beauty of jazz
is in its growth and reach. You're supposed to improvise and
experiment in jazz. Bebop and smaller than Big Band ensembles used to be heresy
too. Thank you Z for music that expanded my ear and blew my mind. I never needed
drugs thanks to you. Not to mention music so futuristic fluid and cool that 30
years later it still sounds futuristic fluid and cool. By the way, Z isn't only
the father of acid jazz but he was one of the first samplers. A fuckin' genius.
Thanks to the Youtubes you can visit the
entirety of the Z canon from his days with
Cannonball Adderly:
to
his peak work with Weather
Report and even, and I admit this as a fan, his somewhat disappointing work
with the Zawinul Syndicate. Just about every song from Heavy Weather, definitely
their masterpiece even though Night Passage is a beautiful album as well, is
online. You can find tunes from Heavy Weather
here, here, here,
here and
here.
As for showcase pieces, I think these two
songs from Mr. Gone kind of catch Z at his best. I just wish someone had taped
the 79 Weather Report that I caught at the old Stanley Theater with Jaco. Still
one of the most memorable concerts that I had ever seen. I was actually not a
big fan of Mr. Gone when it came out but these tunes have aged very well or
maybe its Jaco's sinewy live bass lines. Z or Weather Report was never as good
post Jaco. Just an opinion. (Another opinion: He probably needed another
heavyweight like Wayne Shorter to occasionally tell him no.)
and River People:
You'll never be forgotten Z. I can't imagine my life without
your sound.
Sept 9
The Steelers won
so I won't be depressed tomorrow. I think the key is doing well these next seven
games against somewhat weaker opponents. If they can go at least 5 wins 2 losses
then they have a great shot at the playoffs. This looks like a team that's
headed by a quarterback who didn't have a near death experience.
I haven't supported the
hands around the burgosphere effort one because I'm poor and two I don't
think this solves a problem and three if my tax dollars were spent properly
there would be plenty of money for the care of this society's victims.
and four I think the real solution to this kind of problem is a more open and
tolerant understanding of male sexuality whichmeans
legalizing prostitution and porn(studies show that rape goes down
when availability of either porn or prostitution goes up) so that bathroom
stalls or force aren't options that grown men would ever need or use. But I
should probably keep that to myself.
I will be supporting the efforts of the
Real News because I really
think the problems of society remain problems because the corporate media is run
by the same people who are creating these problems. (Read the
propaganda model for the lowdown. And as someone who has worked in a couple
of newsrooms I can testify that its true.)
Their theory is that if 20 million people give 10 dollars a
month you can create a real alternative press. Well, I think I can give 10
bucks. Not sure if I can give monthly but...Watch the promo above.
Yet another episode of
My Big
Fat Evil American Empire. Of course they want a closed internet. Its the
only place that's offering resistance.
I have to admit if I lived in
Homewood I would vote for independent David Adams. He's got a brain. Related:
Thank God you failed to
run as a republican. I can't vote for Republicans, even theoretically.
Running as an independent is actually better. Yet another rabble rouser without
a blog or even a website. I suppose I could help him with that...
Sept 6
Late Thursday Night Around the Internets
I must recommend (again) that you go
out and buy all of the issues of Black
Summer that you can find. I hear that its sold out in some places, probably
because the current administration is just so so popular. Warren Ellis takes
this just a step or two beyond Marvel's Civil War, which I liked but doesn't
quite get at the question of what if your government is evil and corrupt. Sure,
I trust military industrialist and all around
cool exec Tony Stark,
who I'm sure is indifferent to all the Haliburton like wealth he's acquiring
from our evil imperialist wars (hmmmm...) but the Bush administration? No
fucking way. So go out and buy Black Summer or you'll make the Eye of Horus very
angry. And you wouldn't like him when he's angry...
Soft
Machine futurist Rudy Rucker has a
blog. Actually, a lot of talented people in science fiction and comics have
blogs now and I'm thinking of starting sections on the left showcasing them.
Related: Nothing quite this
elaborate however.
It is a good day to remind you to buy
Fair Trade, products, and
help marginalised producers and workers move from a position of vulnerability to
security and economic self-sufficiency. Fair Trade producers move from being
poor farmers working alone to organized co-ops producing better quality, getting
more money and living better lives. Why organize?
Samuel Gompers listed
some good reasons:
What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses
and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice;
more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of
the opportunities to cultivate our better natures, to make manhood more noble,
womanhood more beautiful, and childhood more happy and bright.
I think its time that someone from
Wilkinsburg talked about the Pittsburgh mayor's race. Even if I was given the
choice between the incompetent lying dem pol and the evil republican I'd
probably have to go with the former. I just think that the Republican party is
evil. When you tell me that DeSantis is the "nice" republican I sort of feel
like you're talking about the "nice" Nazi. Not to mention that
his website is fulla nothing.
I don't even know if he supports public transit or not. What public sector
unions would he go after in order to get cuts? Wouldn't he gut public services
and bid out the services to Halliburton? Isn't that what Republicans do? I
don't think he'll invade Cleveland but I don't know I'm just not sure...Of
course, this is also a great opportunity for the Green Party so of course
they're not running anybody...Pathetic. Ryan Scott, the revolutionary, doesn't
even have a website or a blog, which, and perhaps he doesn't know this, would be
a perfect place for a socialist to spew propaganda because its cheap. Doesn't
even have a blog...More Pathetic.
I actually saw four of these Smart
cars while walking in the South Side several weeks ago. More info
about The Smart Car here.
Half crazy (I don't think fluoride is
blinding my spiritual third eye) half paranoid yet possibly true theory that
ties together a number of disturbing underground trends and activities from the
fall of the dollar to why sectarian violence in Iraq is seen as a plus. Goes
fast even for an hour and a half speech. After watching this I'm getting a
passport and probably a gun. I'd move my investments out of the dollar if I had
any investments. Not boring. (thanks to bruce at Amsam for this...)
Random Assortment of Links
David
Sirota answers this
O Dub
question and
its an emphatic "No." Looks like dems are already willing to give the
pentagon 50 billion more. Pathetic. Laughing at the antiwar indeed. More like
pissing all over us. Need a third party. Just that simple. Third Party or die.
More related:
Is Conyers getting sane on impeachment?
I highly recommend Black Summer
issues 0 thru 2. Think the Justice League vs. The Bush Administration.
All Praise Mighty Horus. He is wise and strong. And he wants
new elections with paper ballots.
And speaking of evil governments up
to villainy, Cindy Sheehan (plus notable friends) is warning us that
a new false flag operation is in the works. (hat tip to Uncle Scam at Amsat):
To the American people, and to peace loving
individuals everywhere:
Massive evidence has come to our attention which
shows that the backers, controllers, and allies of Vice President Dick Cheney
are determined to orchestrate and manufacture a new 9/11 terror incident,
and/or a new Gulf of Tonkin war provocation over the coming weeks and months.
Such events would be used by the Bush administration as a pretext for
launching an aggressive war against Iran, quite possibly with nuclear weapons,
and for imposing a regime of martial law here in the United States.
We
call on the House of Representatives to proceed immediately to the impeachment
of Cheney, as an urgent measure for avoiding a wider and more catastrophic
war. Once impeachment has begun, it will be easier for loyal and patriotic
military officers to refuse illegal orders coming from the Cheney faction.
We
solemnly warn the people of the world that any terrorist attack with weapons
of mass destruction taking place inside the United States or elsewhere in the
immediate future must be considered the prima facie responsibility of
the Cheney faction.
We urge responsible political leaders everywhere
to begin at once to inoculate the public opinion of their countries against
such a threatened false flag terror operation.
(Signed)
A Group of US Opposition Political Leaders Gathered in Protest at the Bush
Compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, August 24-25, 2007
CYNTHIA MCKINNEY,
FORMER US CONGRESSWOMAN, GEORGIA
CINDY SHEEHAN, CANDIDATE FOR US CONGRESS, CALIFORNIA
CRAIG HILL, CANDIDATE FOR US CONGRESS, VERMONT GREEN PARTY
BRUCE MARSHALL, CONVENOR, PHILADELPHIA PLATFORM
JAMILLA EL-SHAFEI,
KENNEBUNK PEACE DEPARTMENT
WEBSTER G. TARPLEY, AUTHOR
ANN WRIGHT, COLONEL US ARMY RESERVE, FORMER US DIPLOMAT
DR. DAHLIA WASFI,
WWW.LIBERATETHIS.COM
GEORGE PAZ MARTIN
JOHN KAMINSKI, LAWYER,
IMPEACHMENT ACTIVIST
I am a mother who wants her
children to grow up free. I was in the midst of starting a company, when I
stumbled upon something that changed the course of my life: 9-11 truth, crimes
against nature, treasonous war profiteering, and other things which have changed
this apolitical woman into an active-duty peaceful soldier!
August 23
Well I'm in.
I've been to the website and I have no
idea how my "hitting" the streets of Wilkinsburg will do anything but I'm open
minded. Its also my off day. But I fully expect those of you with kids to feed
or who like their jobs to be out there "hitting" the streets with me. Come on.
All you have to lose is your livelihoods. That said, I do think this is an idea
that could work. We need more actions outside the tweedle dee tweedle dum
parties that won't end the war. It will be interesting to see how well they can
get their message out. I'll do my part.
August 21
I really think
that the solution to the gun problem isn't gun control (There are about 100
million guns in the streets. You would just create a black market. Criminals
certainly would get theirs I might add.) but freely available bullet resistant
materials such as shields, book bags, with possibly some nonlethal weaponry
thrown in. So, last week was a good week for me when it comes to
bullet proof backpacks for
kids,
knife resistant clothing (the company is called Bladerunner) and this
kewl new nonlethal gun that looks like it was designed
by Syd Mead. It comes in
pretty colors too. Related: Trailer for the
Life and Times of Syd Mead.
Would have posted sooner but my ever
dependable comcast went down again. Looks like someone removed a splitter from
the outside. I suppose it could be the NSA or those damn kids or an older kid
with a graying beard. I hope it was those damn kids.
They (those damn kids) probably didn't want
me to comment about this proposed draft.
Multi Medium guy sez
this is a tactical mistake by the republicans. But
who would
stop them? The Democrats simply haven't showed a lot of spine. I can see
them now approving the draft and making the argument that "sending the
dissenters into detention camps and revoking their citizenship all for the
public good don't you know", said Nancy Pelosi and locals
Bob Casey and Jason Altmire... A great opportunity for an opposition party
though (paging Ms. Sheehan to recruit more candidates...)...
Just for the record: If you're drafted to
fight in the Iraq war just say no. Or wait until Mitt's five or six sons get
drafted because we know a Bush administration draft would be ever so fair and
impartial, where rich and poor would serve in equal numbers, over in Hobbitville,
right down from the land of milk and honey, beyond the seventh galaxy etcetera
etcetera...
Related:Some people
think you shouldn't volunteer either. Of course, you shouldn't volunteer for
the American armed forces because you would have to be a fucking idiot to
volunteer to kill and be
killed for oil industry interests. It matters why you kill people. I think
that's the definition of real intelligence. What reason you give to kill people.
That reason shouldn't be "Wella some guy told me to kill ya raghead..." Not a
good reason.
Here's a book those damn kids won't like:
[Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military
Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World By Aimee Allison and David Solnit,
Seven Stories Press, August,
2007]
Army of None is a
manual for opponents of the
Iraq war who want to cut
off its supply of cannonfodder.It presents how- to guides,
hot tips, and successful examples of counterrecruitment strategies in schools
and communities around the
U.S.
It argues that such actions can be a critical part of ending the war by
depriving the military of soldiers to fight it. It presents this strategy as
part of a more general "people power" approach to combating war and transforming
society based on the withdrawal of popular compliance with authority.
The authors argue
that without enough soldiers, it is impossible to sustain a large, long-term
occupation in a country like Iraq.[1]Anyone who doubts this
argument should read the recent speech by Senator Richard Lugar - the one that
heralded the stampede of Republican politicians away from support of Bush's
Iraq policy.Along with the intractable political situation in
Iraq and the loss of
support for the war by the American people, Lugar listed a third factor that
makes current policy untenable:"The fatigue of our
military."Indeed, the window for employing American troops
"without damaging our military strength or our ability to respond to other
national security priorities," according to Lugar, "is closing."
August 7
Short Late Night Around the Internets
There are some
complaints about Bowen from the
Mark Crispin Miller camp about how she will recertify the machines if they
meet certain "conditions". But those conditions probably won't be met because
they're really really hard. Or as Ars Technica explains:
By
Ryan Paul |
Published: August 06, 2007 - 09:27AM CT
California Secretary of State Debra
Bowen announced on Friday that the state hopes to recertify and continue using
electronic voting machines produced by Diebold, Sequoia, and Hart, even though
the machines have known security vulnerabilities and severe flaws. The state
government decided that the machines can still be used as long as the vendors
adhere to a lengthy list of requirements that aim to limit the potential for
security breaches and machine failure.
This announcement from the state
follows extensive red team
security audits that illuminated profound security failings in all of the
electronic voting machines that were subjected to scrutiny. The security
researchers who analyzed the voting machines found ways to modify firmware,
gain root access, trivially circumvent voting machine physical security
mechanisms, install self-propagating trojan horses, and manipulate mock
elections. On Diebold's voting machine, which uses the Windows operating
system, researchers even found a remotely-accessible administrative account
that wasn't protected by a password.
In conditional recertification
decision documents
issued by the state, Bowen outlines an extensive set of requirements that the
electronic voting machine vendors will have to meet before their products can
be used in elections. The vendors will have to provide the Secretary of State
with a document that lists the complete specifications of the hardware and
software used by all components of the voting system, identify requirements
for "hardening" the configuration of all software on the voting machines
including the operating system, create automated testing mechanisms to ensure
that individual voting machines conform to the standards established in the
hardening requirements document, provide a plan for preventing the propagation
of viruses between voting machines, establish documented procedures for
performing necessary security updates on the voting machines and the
underlying operating systems, collaborate with counties to develop
requirements and procedures for protecting the physical security of voting
machines, and document a system for auditing vote results.
The decision documents also include
source code disclosure requirements. The vendors must provide the Secretary of
State with "the source code for any software or firmware contained in the
voting system, including any commercial off the shelf software or firmware
that is available and disclosable by the vendor." It gets better. According to
the documents, "any reasonable costs associated with the review of the source
code for any software or firmware contained in the voting system shall be born
by the vendor." That's right, the vendors have to hand
over their source code and then foot the bill for source code reviews.
Bowen also lays out a series of
requirements for election practices. Most notably, election officials will
have to conduct complete manual audit counts of all votes tabulated on DRE
machines. Use of any kind of Internet connectivity on the machines is strictly
forbidden. Finally, the requirements limit the use of Sequoia and Diebold
machines to one per polling location.
Bowen clearly takes voting machine
security very seriously. The requirements are impressive, but even if the
vendors comply, it still won't change the fact that these machines are
irreparably flawed. Considering the many weaknesses of the voting machines
that received conditional recertification, the unbelievable ineptitude of the
vendors, and the limited amount of time that they have to resolve these
problems, it's hard to imagine that the vendors will really be able to meet
Bowen's requirements. In some states, voting machines have been
certified
anyway even when the vendors refuse outright to adhere to government
standards. Let's hope that Bowen is willing to give Sequoia, Hart, and Diebold
the ax if they can't deliver.
I agree. The vote machines were built out of political
connections, not competency. I still think they'll take their whining to the
courts. Related bingo link here.
Again, this is big news. Should be front
page news. Your voting machines are easily hackable. The public should know
this. Everything that happens in the country that sucks is political. Fallen
bridges, evil wars and broken levees are all born of politics. Things started to
go south after two consecutive and questionable presidential elections where the
will of the people was deprived. Spiderman Debra Bowen is a
Hero. Don't be surprised if the DNC stabs her in the back and works relentlessly
to undermine work that should have been done a decade ago, by everybody of both
parties who proclaims to believe in "democracy".
August 5
The big
news is that Debra
Bowen decertified most if not all of the machines in California--which
we also use here in Pennsylvania--because she found them to be not up to
snuff. Or to translate: she just got rid of easily hackable pieces of junk
that shouldn't have been certified in the first place. What's astonishing isn't
that Bowen did this but that not a single other democratic official even
tried to do this. What does the Pennsylvania Secretary of State do? Is he
or she an empty suit? Bowen for President.
Now this should affect the national
debate because no one in the house or the senate has done the work that
Bowen has done. But don't be surprised if they do ignore her work. In fact, after seeing
this particular congress in action, don't be surprised if congressional dems undermine her work and spout voting machine talking points while they
do it. It's our sick sad excuse of a democracy.
I also strongly suspect that
the evil companies will appeal to the evil GOP courts for "justice" and
those courts will decide "No. We really like the unaccountable machines."
But let's see what happens. And of course a court action could backfire in
that Bowen could show her considerable evidence, which the press would
probably ignore. I could blame the evil GOP courts but its been DNC
strategery
for years now to fold on republican appointees to the courts. Its not
like you ever need justice of course. (see related posts about The
Washington Generals Party.)
Truthdig tips its hat this week to California
Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who did her constituency proud by heading
off potential voting disasters in her state by ruling out the use of
Diebold and Sequoia direct recording electronic (DRE) voting systems in
upcoming elections, with exceptions made for disabled voters.
According to The Brad Blogs Brad Friedman, Bowens
bold move came at the 11th houractually, at 11:45 p.m.just before a
certification deadline. Read on for more of Friedmans coverage:
PAPER BALLOTS FOR CALIFORNIA! - SECRETARY OF
STATE ANNOUNCES DE-CERTIFICATION/RE-CERTIFICATION PLANS FOR E-VOTING
SYSTEMS
Debra Bowen Announces DRE (Touch-Screen) Machines to
be Used Only One Per Polling Place for Disabled Voters with 100% Manual
Count of Paper Trails
Dramatic Late Night Press Conference Held at 11:45pm
in Sacramento...
By Brad Friedman from Plano, TX, with help from
Emily Levy of VelvetRevolution.us
and Tom Courbat of SAVE R VOTE...
In a dramatic late-night press conference, California
Secretary of State Debra Bowen decertified, and then recertified with
conditions, all but one voting system used in the state. Her decisions,
following her unprecedented, independent "Top-to-Bottom Review" of all
certified electronic voting systems, came just under the wire to meet
state requirements for changes in voting system certification.
Bowen announced that she will be disallowing the use
of Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems
made by the Diebold and Sequoia companies on Election Day, but for one DRE
machine per polling place which may be used for disabled voters. The paper
trails from votes cast on DREs manufactured by those two companies must be
100% manually counted after Election Day. DREs made by Hart-Intercivic are
used in only one California county and will be allowed for use pending
security upgrades.
Saying California's touch-screen electronic voting
machines can not prevent hackers or partisans who want to alter vote
counts, Secretary of State Debra Bowen announced late Friday that she will
remove thousands of the machines from use in California's new early 2008
presidential primary next Feb. 5. Southern California - from San Diego to
Orange County to Los Angeles - will most seriously affected.
"When you look at how people actually vote in the
state, more than two-thirds and probably three-quarters will not be
affected by the decisions that I am announcing today," Bowen said,
emphasizing she had a duty to investigate and address concerns about the
integrity of California elections. "The systems that we use to cast and
tally votes in this state are the most fundamental tools of democracy. If
our citizens don't have faith in the tools, then election officials have
to investigate their citizen's concerns."
California's new touch-screen voting machine policy
will likely have a national impact. Other states, including Florida,
Connecticut and Ohio are undergoing similar reviews of their touch-screen
voting systems. Meanwhile, Congress is reviewing its first-ever
legislation to regulate electronic voting. The proposed bills in
Washington largely echo California's law, which require a paper trail for
touch-screen machines and audit standards. Other federal agencies are also
reviewing security standards for electronic voting machines.
"I think much of what we have done here will be
incorporated into standards that will be adopted at the federal level,"
Bowen said.
Last night, following a top-to-bottom review of the
state's election systems, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen all but
banned black box electronic voting. When NASA finds a problem, they dont
continue just because theyve already spent the money, she declared. They
scrub the mission and spend the money to get it right. We must do same with
elections. What a disturbing, radical thought. Does she actually think the
peoples votes are as important as sending astronauts into space? Bowen must
not have listened to enough corporate TV roundtable discussions by
self-perpetuating experts whose main concern is how to responsibly
manipulate the people.
Instead, she listened to those ultimate icons of
irresponsibility, election integrity activists, who actually think it isnt
enough that elections be accepted as legitimate they really have
to be legitimate. Oh, what naifs these activists be! Just imagine
if such unenlightened views had prevailed on the Supreme Court in December
2000. They wouldnt have stopped the vote count in time to avoid the
appearance that the election had been stolen. As a result, after they
stole it, even more people would have realized the theft, doing further
damage to that already fragile relic, The Legitimacy of American Democracy.
For in a media-created world whose fundamental reality is he-said-she-said,
legitimacy can only be a perception.
Returning the real world,
Bowens top-to-bottom review had shown that a single hacker with inside
access could implant malicious code onto a machine which would then spread
to other machines, allowing a whole election to be stolen without anyone
being any the wiser. In keeping with the basic principles of todays
American democracy, she should have said, While this is cause for some
concern, no one would really do such a thing, and besides, the wonderful
companies who created these vulnerable machines cant have their profits
snatched away from them. But instead, subversive that she is, the Secretary
of State had these shocking words to say: It is my hope that voting system
vendors will, starting tomorrow, start to evaluate the competitive advantage
to moving to open source software. That would ruin all their lovely
proprietary code, just to prevent an undetectable election theft that let
the point be stressed has never once been detected.
August 2
The Big News, if you're
paying attention to the very minor backpage story about how the US
election
process has been hacked, is that California Secretary of State Debra
Bowen did something that really should have done about a decade ago. She
directed a group of hackers to take
a comprehensive look at all of
the voting machines, which happen to be the very same machines in our
own great state of Pennsylvania. (Here's a mystery question: who is the
Pennsylvania Secretary of State? What does he or she do exactly?).
And, surprise, they were easily able to hack ALL of
them.
Who could have guessed? Think about that. Of course, whole books and
articles have been written about this very same possibility
here,
here, here,
here, and
here. They were, and certainly remain, crazy people who shouldn't be
given the time of day, even though it looks like they were right. See
Atrios snark about those same serious people vs. what he calls "dirty
fucking hippies" when it comes to the Iraq war for a similar
funny vibe.
From Bradblog:
If you've yet to find
time to read the
hundreds of
pages from the landmark "Top-to-Bottom Review" of voting systems from
California University, as commissioned by CA SoS Debra Bowen, we don't
blame ya.
So after plowing through
dozens of articles covering the reports, we'll make it easy for you, and
recommend two short articles which will get you all quickly caught up with
an overview of some of the most notable findings from all of the various
reports as written in nearly human-being language.
As well, we're happy to
sum up --- and destroy --- the pathetic, predictable, and lock-step Election
Officials' and Vendors' response to Bowen's report in a few easy
paragraphs....
Erika Morphy at
TechNewsWorld does a fine job of giving a brief, to-the-point overview
with some of the most stunning findings quickly explained. She also gives
the response from vendors the time it's worth (very little, but a link to
read more if you wish). The article also has the added benefit of a quote or
two from yours truly.
Scott M. Fulton, III, at BetaNews gives a similarly informed,
descriptive, and human-readable overview and goes into a few more details.
He also points out what much of the media coverage of the reports has
otherwise overlooked. Namely, that the greatest threat revealed in these
reports comes from election insiders.
"Manufacturers may have
been reluctant to cooperate fully with red teams, under the theory that
'hackers' may not themselves enjoy a similar level of access," writes
Fulton. "Of course, that presumes that those seeking to actually break into
a voting system to rig an election, and those who run the election, are in
all cases different people."
The
other scary thing that happened, in the very minor story about how we're
living under a president who has never been elected with a vote count that
we can actually check, is that a number of Ohio ballots have been destroyed.
If you're not aware of this and you probably aren't if you get all your news
from the corporate media (There were fires and car wrecks and murders today,
most of which you can do nothing about. Its a distraction. Trust me on
this.), there were some heroic lawyers who saved the ballots, or so they
thought, so they could better understand the many many anomalies in Ohio
2004. But several days ago we found this out:
The criminal cover-up of
Ohio's stolen 2004 election sinks to the fraudulent, the absurd, the
pathetic
by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
August 2, 2007
The illegal destruction of federally protected 2004 election materials by 56
of 88 Ohio counties has become a fraudulent "dog ate my homework" farce of
absurd justifications and criminal coverups.
The mass elimination of the critical
evidence that could definitively prove or disprove the presumption that the
2004 election was stolen has all the markings of a Rovian crime perpetrated
to hide another one.� Indeed, under Ohio law, that's precisely what must be
presumed here.�
But what makes the situation downright pathetic is that Ohio's new
Democratic Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, has publicly stated she
sees "no evidence" of intentional destruction in the disappearance in more
than 60% of the state's counties of the ballots from the 2004 presidential
election.
So once again, as did Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, the Democrats
seem poised to cave to the on-going GOP coup that has redefined America, and
that now involves the criminal destruction of contested evidence in one of
the most controversial vote counts in US history.
Ironically, in Florida, under Jeb Bush, the ballot records from the 2000
election in all but one of the state's counties were successfully
preserved.� They are now stored in a state repository in Tallahassee.� An
unofficial recount conducted by the national media concluded that Al Gore
rightfully carried Florida, and thus the presidency, in 2000.�
A parallel preservation was ordained by federal and state law for the
election records from Ohio 2004, where a similar examination has been viewed
as inevitable.�
But a series of excuses that range from the lame to the pathetic to the
obviously criminal have left us shocked---shocked!---to learn that despite
the protection of established federal law, a federal court order,
long-standing Ohio laws, two directives from the Ohio Secretary of State's
office, and legal notification letters from plaintiff's attorneys to hold
the evidence, a precise recount of Ohio's stolen 2004 election may no longer
be possible.
In short, Brunner has informed us that 56 of Ohio's 88 counties have mostly
"inadvertently" destroyed all or some of their records from the 2004
presidential election.
And the DNC Secretary of State response...just stunning. They
really are the
Washington
Generals Party. Will the Democrats ever catch a clue? You know that 75
foot hook shot that Meadowlark lobs...you need to defend against that.
Really. The whole bucket of water thing...off sides at least. Probably an
execution offense under David Stern rules...Hey, I'm thinking of doing a
show called DNC Law and Order. Its over in one minute because Detective
Diane Feinstein doesn't believe in clues so nothing ever gets solved. I mean
it looks like a robbery nevermind the wallet left in plain site and the A
List actor playing the mischievous real killer... Related: Sen.
Diane Feinstein might consider a zone defense against the weave: she says
Bowen's findings are disturbing. But
as the Bradblog post notes if
you're so concerned why isn't the elimination of these machines in your
awful awful senate version of voting reform? You're no
Vince D'onofrio maam,
that's for sure.
Sigh. Enough of this.
My Big Fat Evil American Empire
Time for a new feature
here. I call it My Big Fat Evil American Empire. Here's a graphic of Lex
Luthor as president. Of course, he's different from George Bush in that
Lex is widely regarded as being competent.
Featured story from major reporters on the election
fraud beat:
The Bush Administration has both
the inclination and the power to cancel the 2008 election.
The GOP strategy for another
electoral theft in 2008 has taken clear shape, though we
must assume there is much more we don't know.
But we must also assume
that if it appears to Team Bush/Cheney/Rove that the GOP will lose the
2008 election anyway (as it lost in Ohio 2006) we cannot ignore the
possibility that they would simply cancel the election. Those who think
this crew will quietly walk away from power are simply not paying
attention.
The real question is
not how or when they might do it. It's how, realistically, we can stop
them.
In Florida 2000, Team
Bush had a game plan involving a handful of tactics. With Jeb Bush in the
governor's mansion, the GOP used a combination of disenfranchisement,
intimidation, faulty ballots, electronic voting fraud, a rigged vote count
and an aborted recount, courtesy of the US Supreme Court.
A compliant Democrat (Al Gore)
allowed the coup to be completed.
In Ohio 2004, the
arsenal of dirty tricks exploded. Based in Columbus, we have documented
more than a hundred different tactics used to steal the 20 electoral votes
that gave Bush a second term. More are still surfacing. As a result of the
King-Lincoln-Bronzeville federal lawsuit (in which we are plaintiff and
attorney) we have now been informed that 56 of the 88 counties in Ohio
violated federal law by destroying election records, thus preventing a
definitive historical recount.
As in 2000, a compliant
Democrat (John Kerry) allowed the coup to proceed.
For 2008 we expect the
list of vote theft maneuvers to escalate yet again. We are already
witnessing a coordinated nationwide drive to destroy voter registration
organizations and to disenfranchise millions of minority, poor and young
voters.
Wait there's more:
There is much more. In
all instances, the 109th Congress---and the public---have rolled over
without significant resistance.
Most crucial now are
Presidential Directive #51, Executive Orders #13303, #13315, #13350,
#13364, #13422, #13438, and more, by which Bush has granted himself an
immense arsenal of powers for which the term "dictatorial" is a modest
understatement.
The Founders
established our government with checks and balances. But executive orders
have accumulated important precedent. The Emancipation Proclamation by
which Lincoln declared an end to slavery in the South, was issued under
the "military necessity" of adding blacks to the Union Army, a step
without which the North might not have won the Civil War. Franklin
Roosevelt's Executive Order #8802 established the Fair Employment
Practices Commission. Harry Truman's Executive Order #9981 desegregated
the military.
Most to the point,
FDR's Executive Order #9066 ordered the forcible internment of 100,000
people of Japanese descent into the now infamous concentration camps of
World War II.
There is also precedent
for a president overriding the Supreme Court. In the 1830s Chief Justice
John Marshall enshrined the right of the Cherokee Nation to sovereignty
over its ancestral land in the Appalachian Mountains. But President Andrew
Jackson scorned the decision. Some 14,000 native Americans were moved at
gunpoint to Oklahoma. More than 3,000 died along the way.
All this will be
relevant should Team Bush envision a defeat in the 2008 election and
decide to call it off. It's well established that Richard Nixon---mentor
to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney---commissioned the Huston Plan, which
detailed how to cancel the 1972 election.
Today we must ask: who
would stop this administration from taking dictatorial power in the
instance of a "national emergency" such as a terror attack at a nuclear
power plant or something similar?
Nothing in the behavior
of this Congress indicates that it is capable of significant resistance.
Impeachment seems beyond it. Nor does it seem Congress would actually
remove Bush if it did put him on trial.
Short of that, Bush
clearly does not view anything Congress might do as a meaningful
impediment. After all, how many divisions does the Congress command?
The Supreme Court, as
currently constituted, would almost certainly rubber stamp a Bush coup. If
not, like Jackson, he could ignore it as easily as he would ignore
Congress.
What does that leave?
There is much idle speculation now about what the armed forces would do.
We also hear loose talk about "90 million gun owners."
From the public side,
the only conceivable counter-force might be a national strike or an
effective long-term campaign of general non-cooperation.
But we can certainly
assume the mainstream media will give lock-step support to whatever the
regime says and does. It's also a given that those likely to lead the
resistance will immediately land in those new prisons being built by
Halliburton et. al.
So how do we cope with
the harsh realities of such a Bush/Cheney/Rove dictatorial coup?
We may have about a
year to prepare. Every possible scenario needs to be discussed in
excruciating detail.
For only one thing is
certain: denial will do nothing.
Pittsburgh boy Skylar has been picked to play the young
Spock in the new Star Trek film.
Full interview
here. For the record, my fave post Spock vulcan was the other vulcan
on Voyager, although I liked Tuvok.
July 31
I wish I could say that I was
watching Sicko as a completely disinterested party. Unfortunately, I'm one of
those 50 million Americans who doesn't have health insurance--
--quick aside: I indirectly work part time for UPMC. I even
have an UPMC identification card. But part timers don't get health care benefits
for the smaller company that I work for and apparently UPMC,
with only 400 million in profits last time I checked, can't afford to cover
me as well. Quick note to all you folks who spout AMA propaganda about the "long
waits" whenever single payer comes up: I would prefer long waits to never seeing
a doctor at all--
--True, I'm in good health (I think. Nothing has fallen off,
so far....) and I walk a lot but it would be nice to talk to a doctor other than
in an emergency room. The main thing I took away from the movie is that other
people in other countries live much better than we do, period. They get better
health care, better education, and probably better lives. And yes there are
other reasons why they want us to hate France as
Mike Moore makes clear in
this clip. I guess this is why your usual corporate media outlets don't do
more journalism about How People Live abroad. One: They rather you didn't know
and two: you might notice that where people have the six week vacations and
unemployment insurance that pays better than our minimum wage they tend to have
real opposition/labor parties, as opposed to pretend ones that think NAFTA is
going great. I guess, and this could be the theme of all of Mike Moore's movies:
I live in a country that really doesn't give a fuck about me. Hail America and
so forth....
Moore also offers a number of solutions at his website. I'm
definitely printing out that Sicko health care card above.
Its the only health card I'll have. There's also this:
I'm still on the beat on the voting
reform bills that are in the US Congress. As far as I can tell, I'm the only
person on this beat here in Pittsburgh. Still waiting for
that cute Samantha Bennett to give it a shot but no such luck. Just for the
record, there is some evidence that both the 2000 and 2004 elections were
stolen. There are at least four books and one prominent article, written by
heavyweight reporters and PhDs with math degrees and one of the smarter Kennedys,
which can lay it out for you
here,
here, here,
here, and
here.
These books went largely unreported on by both the Republican (Fox and Scaife
and radio talk ilk) and corporate mainstream press. In fact, most of the
hostility has come from Salon's
Farhad Manjoo who was destroyed not only by the public but by
Mark Crispin Miller here.
The story so far: The voter reform movement is bitterly split
over the Holt Bill in the US House. After looking at this for a long time with
puzzlement I have decided that the people (Bradblog
and Mark Miller and Bob Fitrakis) against the Holt bill were right. I base my
final opinion on this
article by Mark Crispin Miller, where he points out that machine lobbyists
and Microsoft essentially got the house committee to roll over on open source
provisions in the bill. (Quick aside: if you can look at and observe the code
you could in theory prevent the
Hursti hack during an election. Proprietary code prevents you from looking.
See
related evil judicial decision here.)
The second reason has to do with the Senate voting reform
bill,
which everyone hates and which seems to have been written by machine
lobbyists. That bill is being sponsored by Diane Feinstein. Now, it turns out
that Feinstein is also pushing to make sure that the bill doesn't take effect
until 2010 thus ruining the only good reason to pass some changes now for the
2008 presidential election even if they're not all favorable to transparency.
Feinstein, according to what I've read, doesn't think the voter theft issue is
real.
There is a shot that the bills could be revived this session
but at this point perhaps we should
let it die. We do have other options. It would seem to be that the major
thing to do would be is to notice when someone like Ken Blackwell purges 300000
mostly black democratic voters from the voting rolls. I have to be honest I
really thought the Democratic Party was doing something like that back in 2004
now I realize that they weren't. And with people like Feinstein at the helm I'm
pretty sure the dems won't be looking again. Why bother after all only two
presidential elections stolen and a million Iraqis dead. Such minor things...
Last year Luzerne County, PA spent $2.4M on 750 ES&S
iVotronic DREs and a one-year warranty. Now that the first warranty is to expire
ES&S wants $300,000 for a three-year warranty. The county Director of Elections
has written the state and told them, in part, In addition to not being able to
meet the financial burden that ES&S is asking us to meet, we cannot individually
deal with such a large, multi-national corporation and the mix of deception this
company promulgates. And he asked the state to ensure that voting-system
vendors doing business here do not have the opportunity to threaten the
democratic process with such unsavory business practices that vendors, such as
ES&S, seemingly have a deep commitment to employing....
I
openly support Cindy Sheehan's run for congress. It would be better though
if she got 25 to 40 people to run with her in the senate and the house and
create a viable third party in the US but that's just me. There needs to be
another option than just the dems and repubs. It would actually make the two
parties better.
Coverage of John
Edwards
here and surprisingly from
Mullah Rob, who probably approves of Edwards firing atheist bloggers. No I
didn't attend but I still think its between Edwards and Obama. Would be nice if
these guys were on the same ticket in any order, although considering the
reality of changing demographics Richardson would seem to be the best vp choice.
Japanese
nuclear accident underplayed. I don't understand why anybody supports
nuclear. Related: Possible organic solar cell breakthrough where you could
produce solar cells by way of a printer. More info
here and
here.
Possibly related:The CEO of Steorn, whose video I feature on my channel above
and whose demo several weeks ago was a complete bust,
talks
about their recent troubles. I still think there might be something to this
free energy device of theirs, but why they simply couldn't film the working
prototype back at the plant troubles me...I guess I'm just being hopeful and I
also think there may be dimensional properties to magnetism and gravity that we
simply don't get yet. Still, we need to see that prototype fellas...
Photos
of a nice country that we're probably going to bomb into oblivion in order
to please the military industrial complex and
AIPAC.
As some people may or may not know, I
believe in the religion wacky techno geek cult very sensible
and optimistic philosophy of
Transhumanism or "The
I'd Like To Be An XMan Movement". I found this interesting transhumanist
statement of purpose which I suppose could double as a kind of a secular
transhumanist prayer. It's very cool. Here it is:
I have seen a world where
death and disease have been defeated by science
where food, shelter, and clothing is manufactured quickly, and without waste
where transparency makes violent crime impossible, and authorities
accountable
where people walk on other planets and in endless virtual worlds
where intelligence and empathy are magnified far beyond present levels
where the diversity of sentient beings has expanded to unimaginable
proportions
where the risk of human extinction has been reduced to near zero.
I will endeavor to take the
fastest safe route to such a future,
and direct my present-day energies towards its realization. I will be polite
and understanding to skeptics and naysayers. I will thoroughly enjoy my daily
life while simultaneously working for a better future.
I will work towards that future
for the good of all, not just myself, and try my best to maintain an
altruistic point of view at all times.
And after this the William Shatner voiceover kicks in talking
about "and Boldly going where no MAN..."
I could have been back Saturday or Sunday
but it turns out that while Comcast can quickly turn off your internets service
when you haven't paid your bill it takes them at least three days for them to
turn it back on when you have paid your bill. Real cute fellas. Looking into
alternatives as I write this.
I also found out that internet services at
the public libraries suck. Downtown, at the Carnegie Library, if you log out
because your crappy 200 dollar mini comp won't access pages anymore you can't
get back on for another half hour. But at least they sell you ear plugs so you
can do this wild thing where you listen to things on the Internets. That's
something that you can't do at my neighborhood
Wilkinsburg
public library. That's right. You're not allowed to use your ear phones at
the public library in Wilkinsburg. Now I can see why they would ban speakers.
I'm no fan of the hippity hop at public libraries. And many people would find my
fave band the Mahavishnu Orchestra equally offensive. Fair enough. I don't
understand why I can't listen to things on earphones. I guess I'm a wild man.
Next I'll demand my federally funded heroin after finishing up "listening" to
something at the Wilkinsburg public library. Call me a scofflaw and a rebel.
I did ask as to what was behind such an
insanely hideous and backwards policy, although perhaps not in those exact words
even though I like to think my expression told a thousand tales of incredulity.
I was told that people listening with their
headphones--which I assumed was a private act which I would recklessly describe
as private and contemplative--was "disruptive". Really. When I asked the kindly
white haired gentleman how is it the Carnegie Library--a slightly bigger library
with more possibly "disruptive" patrons by about a factor of 1000--could sell
earplugs and yet you won't even let me listen to stuff he proudly exclaimed that
the Wilkinsburg library was a separate library not at all operated by the
anarchist bomb throwing emma goldman scum who run the Carnegie Library who let
you "listen" to things on the Internets heaven forbid. I mean, if you let people
listen to things then dancing might break out, or experimental open marriages
between adults. Gotta nip this thing in the bud the librarian thought to himself
while he gave me the evil eye for daring to question Big Brother. That librarian
loved Big Brother. I kept on thinking: "You know if I strangled you where you
stood I bet that would be disruptive...hmmm."
I might ask one of the librarians for a more thorough explanation of the policy,
probably the cute girl with red flower tattoos on her forearms. Hey, its all for
the "mission".
Posting here may
be light this week as I take care of some personal business. But my video
channel will be here. Lots of good stuff if you like alt jazz and left wing
propaganda. I recommend all Jaga Jazzist vids if you can find them. There's also
a beautiful jazz tune by Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek called "Country" If you
listen carefully you can catch Keith Jarrett's trademarked humming. Above: One
of my fave tunes ever by Mr. Frank Zappa.
July 8
Hey they
posted my letter
on Elwin Green's PG blog. It has a glaring grammatical error (should have
said: "Why ACORN only held an event with DNC presidential candidates..." Double
Sigh. That's what I get for typing too fast.). On the other hand, Brave
corporate media blogger Elwin has yet to offer his opinion as to what the RNC
can do for the black working classes, other than ship their jobs off to Chinese
slave labor, which most black folk should find ironic. Quiz time: who has more
power? The broke ass black blogger who runs this site or the corporate media
African American blogger who can't answer a simple question unless "massa" tells
him he can. I'm going to go with the former, although I wouldn't mind making 40
grand a year.
Make your own
Simpsons
likeness. And I must say that I am one handsome fella.
Agent
Ska's brother goes to Ireland so you don't have to. Some good writing here
as well.
Readers sometimes ask me if analyzing
the news from Iraq every day doesn't get me down.
It got me down today. Sunni Arab guerrillas, unable to operate as effectively in
Baghdad because of the US troop surge, had a suicide bomber drive a truck loaded
with explosives into a market in a village on the fringes of the northern city
of Tuz Khurmato and detonate his payload. As I write, authorities had counted
130 dead bodies, many of them women and children, and relatives reported another
20 dead. Another 250 or so were wounded, some of them badly,
according to the Arabic daily al-Hayat. The latter says Iraqis are referring
to the bombing as "the Turkmen massacre." Some 40 homes, 20 shops, and a dozen
automobiles were also destroyed.
Like the detonation of the minarets at the al-Askariya shrine in Samarra
recently, this act of terrorism had a strategic purpose. First, even 160,000 US
troops cannot provide security to the whole country. The guerrillas are
announcing that if they are prevented from operating in the Karrada neighborhood
of Baghdad, they will just shift operations to Samarra (an hour's drive due
north of Baghdad) or Tuz Khurmato.
Moreover, they are saying that they are just as capable of waving a read flag in
front of the Shiite bull even if they aren't in Baghdad. Thus, they hit a sacred
Shiite shrine again at Samarra. And Tuz Khurmato is a largely Shiite Turkmen
city of some 63,000, surrounded by villages with a similar composition, like the
one that was blown up Saturday. Although Turkmen Shiites had in earlier decades
been removed from the formal, clerically-dominated Shiism of Najaf, practicing
instead a folk religion, in the 1990s Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr reached
out to them and brought many of them into orthodox Twelver Shiism. Arab Shiites
now feel solidarity with them, and on occasion young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has
sent Mahdi Army fighters up to protect them. The Badr Corps of the Supreme
Islamic Iraqi Council has also attempted to attract their loyalty. Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki denounced the bombing as the work of Sunni extremists
who declare that Shiite Muslims are actually infidels.
I criticized
ACORN in my letter to the Post Gazette. My history with ACORN goes way back and
I detail their many many problems here. I occasionally still get feedback
from people who have worked or have tried to work for ACORN. Elwin
should read it with links.
Thank You so much for
this very informative article. I was in the process for being hired for an
organizer position in ACORN. I was very excited about the prospect of being part
of working for fair labor rights, but after I learned about the hypocricy and
expliotation that comes along with working for ACORN, I withdrew my application.
Thank you for the advice. Just for fun... here is the email Im sending to their
Director of Recruiting hopefully it will strike a chord:
Ms. Mansour,
I regret to inform you that I am no longer interested in the
activist/organizer position. After doing further research into your
organization I was educated on the hypocricy and mismanagement that is rampant
in ACORN. I refuse to work 55 hours a week and not be paid overtime. I refuse
to be denied lunch breaks and 15 minute breaks that are required by law in
several states. I refuse to work for an organization that insists on putting
young unexperienced workers into possibly dangerous neighborhoods without at
least a buddy system for security. Most importantly, I refuse to work for an
organization that tauts the necessity of fair labor practices and then
blatantly DENIES THEM TO THEIR OWN WORKERS. I am very passionate about the
fighting oppression that ACORN works against, but I will not become a victim
of it myself. Thank you for your time, and I hope these problems can be
rectified within the ACORN community.
Jaco
Pastorius, voted greatest bassist of all time, does his version of America
(catch the early wiz of oz riffs...).
And now a
few words from Frederick Douglas, a badass in any time. And yes I was
surprised to see that at the Great Orange Satan's left side or his virtual
frontpage. Perhaps he's getting smarter.
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I
answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the
gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your
celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national
greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless;
your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty
and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and
thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere
bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes
which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of savages.
There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody
than are the people of the United States at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all
the monarchies and despotisms- of the Old World, travel through South America,
search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the
side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that,
for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
There were two prominent black american
bloggers of prominence who you could reliably trust to fill the "token" slot in
most liberal blogs over the last few years. One of them, Steve Gilliard, just
passed away and while I sometimes disagreed with him (Steve never got the vote
theft issue right or figured out that this was kind of a black issue...not a
problem with, say,
the Black Agenda Report, which arguably has the best black writers on the
net. They never say stupid things.) he knew stuff. Oliver Willis is the other
who guy who usually fills the token spot on most liberal white blogs. I have
come to the conclusion that Oliver Willis just isn't a very talented guy.
Certainly not a guy who represents black intellectual thought at its best and
brightest. Today, for example,
he
recently called Howard Zinn an "idiot".
Go ahead and gasp.
Even if its true that Howard Zinn--who
actually served in ww2 when its clear that the only thing the Original O Dub has
ever served is on the menu and its large portions--doesn't love America
sufficiently enough for Oliver's tastes I don't understand someone who's African
American putting this guy down. Here's just a partial rundown of Mr. Zinn's
civil rights pedigree from Wikipedia:
While at Spelman, Zinn
collaborated with historian Staughton Lynd
and mentored young student activists, among them writer Alice Walker
and Marian Wright Edelman.
Although Zinn was a tenured professor, he was dismissed, in June 1963, after
siding with students in their desire to challenge Spelman's traditional emphasis
of turning out "young ladies" when, as Zinn described in an article in The Nation,
Spelman students were likely to be found on the picket line, or in jail for
participating in the greater effort to break down segregation in public places
in Atlanta. Zinn's years at Spelman are recounted in his autobiography You Can't Be Neutral on a
Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times.
His seven years at Spelman College, Zinn said, "are probably the most
interesting, exciting, most educational years for me. I learned more from my
students than my students learned from me." [1]
Zinn said that while at
Spelman, he observed thirty violations of the First and Fourteenth amendments to
the United States Constitution in Albany, Georgia,
including the rights to freedom of speech,
freedom of assembly
and equal protection
of the laws. In an article on the civil rights movement in Albany, Zinn
describes the people who participated in the Freedom Rides
to end segregation, and of the reluctance of President John F. Kennedy
to enforce the law.[2]
Zinn has also pointed out that the Justice Department under Robert F. Kennedy
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation headed by J. Edgar Hoover,
did little to nothing to stop the segregationists from brutalizing the civil
rights workers.[3]
Zinn wrote frequently about
the struggle for civil rights, both as a participant and historian [4]
and in 1960-61, he took a year off from teaching to write SNCC: The New Abolitionists
and The Southern
Mystique.[5]
In his book on SNCC, Zinn describes how the sit-ins against segregation were
initiated by students and, in that sense, independent of the older, more
established civil rights organizations.
This is
the guy that Oliver Willis calls an "idiot". Astonishing. Beyond contempt. So
beside Oliver's name on my linkroll I've added a whole list of African American
bloggers who are probably better and brighter than Oliver Willis and who know
who their friends are. Oh, he adds: "I hate people like Howard Zinn". Unreal. Un
fucking real.
Speaking
of the vote theft issue, there are a number of voter reform bills moving through
the congress right now. This is actually a really important debate that you
would know about if the media concentrated on real issues and not bullshit car
wreck and fire stories that you can do nothing about for the most part.
It's
actually a fairly complicated issue. Voting activists that I respect are split
on the Holt Bill in the house. Everybody agrees that the Feinstein bill is
terrible and seems to have been written by voting machine lobbyists. I would
think that if any of the senate bill makes it into the final package this bill
shouldn't pass.
There has
finally been a debate between the pros and cons of this issue and
you can listen to it here.
Unlike Paris Hilton going to jail this issue may determine who wins or gets away
with stealing the 2008 election.
A Special "I Link Therefore I Am"
Version of Around the Internets
Some art
by Paul Pope. Pic of Ravi Shankar, father of Norah Jones.
Horrible supreme
court decision commentary
here and here. I agree that
the high court has become a tool of evil. I will also remember that the dems
didn't filibuster a single Bush II court nominee. Related "racism
is dead" news here. Also related:
Pitt study documenting that life in Pittsburgh not great for African
Americans.
It's amazing how badly the entertainment industry wants
people to believe that anything they don't like must be illegal. There's already
a long history of them suing the easiest party for them to find rather than the
party actually breaking the law, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise to see
them doing so again. Apparently the MPAA has
sued
some sites that create a directory of online videos, mainly TV shows and
movies. These sites do not host the files. They simply point people to where
they are online. Effectively, it's the same thing that a search engine like
Google does. There are plenty of Google searches that will lead you to
unauthorized content, but for some reason, the entertainment industry believes
that if you make a specialized search engine or directory
you're somehow
liable. These sites have
come under
attack before, and the MPAA may be hoping that by creating a specialized
search engine they'll be able to show "inducement" under the Supreme Court's
Grokster standard. It will definitely be worth watching how these court cases
go, because if the MPAA succeeds, it effectively means that they'll have the
right to sue anyone who links to infringing content by claiming inducement. That
would be a horrible precedent to set.
Agent
Ska's brother is blogging. Are there any underachievers in this family?
Related: She's also involved in
this group ladies (with a title font right out of Jane Austen) blog that I
had better permalink and soon...
I decided to check out my fave impartial
corporate media blogger (because when I read something from corporate media
bloggers I just KNOW I'll learn something dangerous and whatnot..) Elwin Green,
who apparently is quite the impartial one. Don't ask who he backed in the civil
war. He won't know or can't tell or something. Anyway, he wrote about how ACORN
(not my favorite organization but they do some good) wrote about who how they
were going to meet Obama
and then he
mentioned this:
"No word yet on whether the organization
will offer a similar trip to see and hear Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani or any of
the other Republican presidential candidates."
So I wrote him this:
Well, first, I think the reason why
ACORN, run by mostly unaccountable white folks by the way last time I checked,
is that the Republican Party is thought to be, quite correctly, kind of a racist
party. Why did white supremacist David Duke choose the GOP? Because that's where
he felt comfortable and I agree with him. I know that there's a tactical reason
not to lay your eggs in one party but why help the other people that's clearly a
racist party and against any significant widestream effort that would actually
improve the lot of the black underclass for example: direct federal funding of
education as opposed to property taxes or amending these top down trade deals to
protect the bulk of african american blue collar workers or investing more in
education than prisons or not waging imperialistic war against mostly brown
skinned people and the list goes on. What benefit would there be to hearing Fred
Thompson speak? I mean, even white americans are soured on the GOP...why should
African Americans embrace them? Wouldn't building the Green Party into a viable
second party make more sense. Your opinion please.
So far no response from Elwin. Hey, he said
he wanted feedback...I also forgot to mention the republicans are really really
bad because they've stolen the last two presidential elections by purging mostly
african americans from the polls. I know Elwin is impartial but sometimes a
grudge is a healthy thing...
June 19
I actually caught the last day of the
Three Rivers arts fest thing and I caught two interesting artists. The above
work was drawn by Monique Luck,
who also has
a mural in Squirrel Hill. I like all the murals I've seen in the city so
far. And below there are two pieces by
Mark Traughber. There were more other interesting artists
at the fair--the couple who built modded broomsticks and the black wood carver
come to mind--but they didn't have websites so...
Down below I linked to a site called
The Real News. This is an
attempt to create a completely publicly funded press. They don't want government
subsidies or corporate money. They need your donations. I guess it would be like
NPR except that the republicans wouldn't work relentlessly to either destroy it
or convert it to fox news. The founder talks more about the project below.
I finally
have
time to respond to this, which was a part of a
City Paper story here. (I do think Chris Potter has done a better job as
editor than my old In Pittsburgh editor Andy Newman...on the other hand, Chris
has never gotten back to me about doing a weekly book column, which I could even
do online. Oh, I'm sure he'll find a cute white kid
who
hasn't written for Locus to do it, preferably from an Ivy League college or
local...Just like my mom implied: only rich white kids should aspire to write.
True, that would eliminate about 99.9 percent of the majority of black writers
who've written over the last 100 years but my mom isn't a big reader...I think
I'm going to ignore her advice...yeah I'm a little pissed off at my mom not that
she would read this. She has a hard time even turning on the computer in between
bouts of telling me how to live because she's so "bright"...)
Here are the interesting quotes from the new council rep from
Homewood:
"The issues of some people, like
those in the blogs, are not my issues," Burgess says. "What's holding our
district back is the education for our kids, the violence and lack of economic
development in our communities." Such issues, he notes, get very little
attention from bloggers, who are much more likely to be set abuzz by the news
that Ravenstahl was detained by police at a Steelers game in 2005.
Burgess admires the blogs for being an "unfiltered perception of some segment of
the community." But, he adds, "The authors of the blogs are talking about the
perspective they live" -- and "mostly, they aren't living in Homewood."
First, and this is just flat out wrong on so many levels,
there are a number of local blogs that do concern themselves primarily with
education and economic development, almost nauseatingly so. I suppose Pittsblog
and Mark Rauterkaus would be the first stops. Of course, I'm curious as to what
he's going to do about the issues of education and economic development as a
councilman. I always thought that those were macro issues that involved direct
federal funding for education as opposed to property tax based (where the
residents of Fox Chapel and the residents of Homewood (or what American Writer
Greg Palast bluntly and correctly calls "American
Bantustans" ) get a
slightly different kind of "public" education.) and massive deindustrialization
where corporations and their political servants are rewarded for hollowing out
the American economy...not to mention continuing an imperialist war at odds with
the public in and in concert with what C. Wright Mills called "The Power Elite".
Two, the reason that Luke got a lot of attention early is not
because whitey is preoccupied with minor things about how the mayor beats raps
that would lead other people into beatings or arrests (I would think that would
interest an African American man, really.) but because he's perceived to be a
lightweight machine dem--who would be a republican in a two party town-- who
doesn't have the heft, breadth, or depth to do anything to fundamentally change
the many things that are wrong in the city. Furthermore, they were also shadow
operatives for the now deceased Peduto campaign and they probably thought it was
helpful to his campaign.
Three, there's nothing stopping someone from writing about
Homewood who lives in Homewood, aside from that
Post Gazette guy
who registered as a Republican because, you know, as a black man he's completely
unbiased. (File under: what's wrong with the corporate media and the objectivity
principle.) Actually, if you really are unbiased, does that make you smart? Some
black guy who won't tell me who he wants to win the Civil War because he's
"objective"? Who's more helpful to me you or David Sirota, or even the late
Steve Gilliard? (More thoughts on him when I have time..tragic loss.)
I suppose, if Burgess understood the Internets, he could write
that blog and tell me more about what he's doing to improve the local economy
and education in Homewood. Hey, I'd like to know.
Speaking of C. Wright Mills,
here's a helpful quote that perhaps explains why the Dems haven't stopped
the war.
"American 'militarism,' accordingly,
involves the attempt of military men to increase their powers, and hence their
status, in comparison with businessmen and politicians. To gain such powers they
must not be considered a mere means to be used by politicians and money-makers.
They must not be considered parasites on the economy and under the supervision
of those who are often called in military circles 'the dirty politicians.' On
the contrary their ends must be identified with the ends as well as the honor of
the nation; the economy must be their servant; politics an instrument by which,
in the name of the state, the family, and God, they manage the nation in modern
war.' What does it mean to go to war?' Woodrow Wilson was asked in 1917. 'It
means,' he replied, 'an attempt to reconstruct a peacetime civilization with war
standards, and at the end of the war there will be no bystanders with sufficient
peace standards left to work with. There will be only war standards ... '
American militarism, in fully developed form, would mean the triumph in all
areas of life of the military metaphysic, and hence the subordination to it of
all other ways of life."
Speaking of the
Pittsburgh Lesbian correspondents, I noticed they thought that there should
have
been more comment about the house fire that claimed five lives. I don't
think it means that we're not paying attention. Some of us just don't think
that's real news. If
you're interested in real news, then go look at the topic matter of, say, a
Democracy Now or
Undernews. Real news, to me, is
something that you can change and affect. I'm more interested in policy
questions because,
in theory anyway and not necessarily in practice as of late, I can replace
the policymakers whereas I really can't do anything about tragic fires or
carwrecks. That's my two cents. I also remember my two years of being a beat
reporter at the Evansville Courier where I had the wonderful joy of asking
somebody how they felt about their newly dead relatives. Not the fun part of
that job...
I agree
with this Agent Ska piece on POG. Peduto must know that what he's saying
wouldn't hold up in a court of law. It had a kind of "If not for you meddling
kids" kind of tone so perhaps he thinks these attacks against Shadyside shops
and green grocers (Is that a legitimate target...I know the East End Co-op is a
little pricey but still...) were inspired by POG's actions. I guess I have a
different point of view. I think that when your country slaughters a half
million Iraqis and the political process isn't working some things should be
broken. I wouldn't have picked community grocers as my target but who said
anarchists were organized, or even could be.
June 12
Darwyn Cooke, the artist above,
apparently won an award or two or something. I think he deserves it. I have
not read this new Spirit. Since the art looks spectacular and Frank Miller is
putting off Sin City 2 in order to do a movie version of this property perhaps I
should check it out.
Well, the fact that we didn't see the actual hit itself blurs
things just a bit. One, its meant to symbolize how you would see a quick death.
Actress Sean Young, who had a near death experience, described it as someone
turning the television off. Two, its kept open ended because of movie potential.
That nervous guy who goes into the bathroom isn't a hitter who finds a gun in
the stall. Those black kids aren't hitters either. Three, life goes on for Tony
as uncertain as it ever was and Paulie Walnuts is the head of the New Jersey
gang? Please. I opt for two: "Sopranos: The Movie."
More pros and cons about the new
election bill in congress. I'm still a cowardly fencesitter. First the cons:
From Rebecca:
"The 2007 Holt bill and its
revised version is NOT a compromise bill, although it HAS been COMPROMISED in
various regards. Specifically it re- funds the EAC (the earlier version
actually extended the EAC as an institution, indefinitely, the later version
provides a $1B handout to the vendors, to be doled out by the EAC since they
are out of HAVA money to give away) with funds that will CERTAINLY be used by
states, such Holt's home base of
New Jersey, to purchase VVPAT add-ons to DREs, hence perpetuating the
use of this unreliable and expensive equipment. The bill does NOT ban DREs, as
some HR811 advocates have been misinformed to believe and expound. In the case
of
New Jersey, purchasing precinct-based opscan equipment is NOT an
option, since the state has continued (to this date) to refuse to certify any
such equipment.
The Holt bill also will be the FIRST to FEDERALLY legislate and thus
legitimize the restrictive use of non-disclosure agreements in the examination
of election systems. Certainly Holt could have disallowed trade secrecy for
voting systems and the vendors could continue to protect their intellectual
property with copyrights and patents. Instead, this is a very bad aspect of
the bill, because it introduces this sanction of secrecy in such fashion that
election advocates run the risk of being silenced or threatened with lawsuits
if they reveal information about the equipment. The NDA section of the Holt
bill has been weasel-worded such that advocates will be required to foot hefty
attorney fees in order to ensure that the NDAs that they sign do not contain
implicit risks such as compensation for vendor loss of income, criminal
charges if false claims are made, and so on.
There are many other severely bad aspects of this bill, such that it does NOT
pose an improvement for 2008 or 2010, but rather provides a further legacy of
bad voting equipment and election-related policies, that will be exploited by
the vendors into a 180 degree turn-around from the bill's (presumed and
touted) intentions. We will be dealing with this additional resulting mess for
another half-decade, much as we found ourselves dealing with the mess that
HAVA created for the last half-decade.
I am of the strong opinion that a bad federal bill is WORSE than no bill at
all. At least with no federal bill, the states can continue to enact GOOD
legislation (with the assistance of input from concerned citizens and election
advocates). With a bad bill, threats (such as we saw with HAVA) and
intimidation (such as from the DoJ) can be used to force unwanted election
equipment down on the municipalities. HR811 is a bad bill and should not be
supported AT ALL BY ANYONE, least of all, election integrity advocates.
............ .... and further, the companion bill is unlikely not to have
sufficient bipartisan support to pass muster in the Senate, and certainly both
the House and Senate do not have sufficient votes to override a Bush veto.
............ ......... the "shushing" tactics used by so-called election
integrity advocates to quelch debate and discussion on Holt's bill this round
have been rather appalling. It seems apparent (at least to me) that supporting
(or remaining quiet about) HR811 is actually a "litmus test" to see who will
continue to get a seat at the table at hearings, and who will benefit from the
grant money being doled out by the feds.
So far, we can see that the legacy of this crop of House Dems will include
hundreds of billions of war debt, plus the death of tens of thousands
(including many of our own service people) in the Iraqi civil war, all in the
spirit of "compromise. " Let us not be fooled by the gutless Dems that Holt's
voting bill will not be similarly "compromised" to promote the vendors'
agendas.
Rebecca Mercuri.
And the pros:
Folks,
In an effort to be gentle and polite, here's my overview opinion on
HR 811.
I wholeheartedly support it, and will continue to do so. And I
encourage you all to do the same.
The bill has been in markup lately and only a choice few have seen it
along the way. I do not know who all has seen it, but I believe that
Barry Kauffman (Common Cause) is one of them and still likes it as it
is. His opinion trumps some of you folks' opinions by me.
What I read in some of your emails [on this and other lists] is
anger. Unthrottled, unbridled anger. What on earth are you all so
angry about? Some of what you say is somewhat inaccurate, but we
will pass on that for the moment. But mostly what I see is a railing
at the heavens because it's not raining in the right spot.
In the House now they have a huge contingent of sponsors and
cosponsors to HR 811. It has taken well over a year to garner that
support. It is based on a tentative balance, as is every negotiated
bill, and yet it still retains bipartisan support.
Right now, large corporate forces are opposing the bill, because it
would affect what they see as their "proprietary" rights (it would
let others see what poopy computer code they've been selling or would
allow the theft of Windows code which is also used in their systems)
and some of those corporate interests also now have the ears of
elections officials, whom they have been wining and dining and whose
elections they have often quite effectively infiltrated with their
employees' hands. They have gotten such elections officials to write
letters to legislators (who have waved hunks of paper around to show
same) advocating against the legislation.
We are not bloody likely to get anywhere near this kind of
Congressional support for any other bill of this sort ever again. It
is all we can do to keep Voter ID out of the blasted thing before it
is passed. There is absolutely no reason to throw the bill away.
And further to that, I'll stand AccuPoll's machine up to some of your
opinions any day. Even our cohorts at CMU and Pitt computer dep'ts
can appreciate its merits. Also appreciate the integrity of the
company. I get furious when folks come up and say that no DRE -
or "no electronic voting machine" - is good enough. The machines are
meant for (a) expediency of tabulation of votes, and (b) facility
of user interface with the ballot, and (c) accurate calculations.
This is really what all computers were/are designed for. We don't
want them to do any more. And this is what should be reflected in
the federal law. If they are doing this stuff and are not retaining
recountability, accessibility, security, safety, or voter-
verifiability, then they are not good enough tools toward our ends.
Certain of your plans of action really are no plan at all. Certain
items such as emergency paper ballots in case of breakdown really do
not belong in federal legislation. They are covered in county and
state legislation. I don't really think it is a good idea to cast
off all our various state legislation in favor of uniform federal
legislation (although
Pennsylvania' s election laws are so convoluted
and self-contradictory and antiquated in many places that I have to
bite my lip when I say that).
Let me reiterate what I keep on saying in various arenas.
The Help
America Vote Act was written by Bob Ney for his voting machine
comapny owning friends to make a pile of money and possibly to rig
votes in certain places. It was passed by a Republican Congress,
another bunch of his friends. (I hope he has so many friends in
jail.) You know what Bob Fitrakis wrote about the computers in
Ohio
vis-a-vis the lost federal emails and the voting tabulations running
through the same server.
The companies spent virtually nothing on R&D but everything on
schmoozing. Now we have all, like sheep, bought their machines, even
against all common sense. So we need to fix this, and that fix
should rightly come from a federal level. We really cannot outlaw
bad companies or bad business decisions by counties and states. But
we can legislate against their effects. What do the bad machines
do? What wrongs might they cause? How do we prevent those?
Right now, too many folks are dividing those of us who have been
working toward getting the best out of what we have been given -
finding the best machines, using the happy notion of accessibility to
its best intent, etc. We have to let common sense prevail, and we
have to work with what we have. We cannot go off railing and wailing
and flailing, and those who do should please disassociate themselves
from those of us who remain calm.
I'm still sticking behind 811 because it is our best shot. We have a
cannon aimed at the groin of the problem, and even if we don't have a
killer charge in the cannonball, we need to fire, because the only
thing we have left is shotguns at 500 feet.
- Audrey
Why, for reasons
that simply can't be fathomed by decent gawd fearin' folk, Richard Dawkins is
still a mean ol' atheist.
You know, for a
long time, I've wanted to cut Maria of 2 Political Junkies off in traffic and
then stick my head out of my car window and say something like "Yeah, I nearly
killed ya! And yeah, you can write down my license plate cuz' whaddya gonna
do...write about it on your blog and call me a stupid frakin bitch...? Hardee
har har I dares ya" or something.
I have now reconsidered and withdrawn my dream.
JOHN PERKINS: Thank you, Amy. Its great to be here.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, before we go further, economic hit men
-- for those who havent heard you describe this, let alone describe yourself as
this, what do you mean?
JOHN PERKINS: Well, really, I think its fair to say that
since World War II, we economic hit men have managed to create the world's first
truly global empire, and we've done it primarily without the military, unlike
other empires in history. We've done it through economics very subtly.
We work many different ways, but perhaps the most common
one is that we will identify a third world country that has resources our
corporations covet, such as oil, and then we arrange a huge loan to that country
from the World Bank or one of its sister organizations. The money never actually
goes to the country. It goes instead to US corporations, who build big
infrastructure projects -- power grids, industrial parks, harbors, highways --
things that benefit a few very rich people but do not reach the poor at all. The
poor arent connected to the power grids. They dont have the skills to get jobs
in industrial parks. But they and the whole country are left holding this huge
debt, and its such a big bet that the country can't possibly repay it. So at
some point in time, we economic hit men go back to the country and say, Look,
you know, you owe us a lot of money. You can't pay your debt, so youve got to
give us a pound of flesh.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain your history. What made you an
economic hit man?
JOHN PERKINS: Well, when I graduated from business school
at Boston University, I was recruited by the National Security Agency, the
nations largest and perhaps most secretive spy organization.
AMY GOODMAN: People sometimes think the CIA is that, but
the NSA, many times larger.
JOHN PERKINS: Yeah, it is larger. Its much larger. At
least it was in those days. And its very, very secretive. We all -- theres a
lot of rumors. We know quite a lot about the CIA, I think, but we know very,
very little about the NSA. It claims to only work in a cryptography, you know,
encoding and decoding messages, but in fact we all know that theyre the people
who have been listening in on our telephone conversations. Thats come out
recently. And theyre a very, very secretive organization.
Rest of the
transcript here. He can also be seen talking at the bestest music channel
that I've ever created
here and
above.
Can't blog just now...I'm watching The
Shield. Update: Welp that was exciting. Keeps everything active until next
year's final season. I thought Shane redeemed himself a little by saving Vic's
family. I really want a Shield/Sopranos crossover.
June 2
Quick Sopranos review: Bobby buys it.
I can never understand why people in such a dangerous line of work don't wear
body armor, like, all the time. You can even get
tshirts that are bullet resistant.
You can't always carry guns but you can
carry air tasers (no permit
needed I think) portable shields, something. Decent episode. So far, New York:
1and a half. New Jersey: Nuthin'. I hate that Phil Leotardo.
Q:
What is The Pinky Show? A:
The Pinky Show is the original super lo-tech hand-drawn educational TV show.
The Pinky Show focuses on information and ideas that have, for various
reasons, been misrepresented, distorted, suppressed, ignored, or otherwise
excluded from mainstream discussion. The creator and main character of the
show, a cat named Pinky, presents and analyzes the material in an informal,
easy-to-understand way, with helpful illustrations that she draws herself.
Episodes are short and are available on the internet for free at
www.PinkyShow.org.
I'm still confused over whether to support
this new voting reform bill in congress. First, here are the people who hate it,
which include people like Mark Crispin Miller and Bradblog. These are sources I
respect. Here's
what they want you to send to your congress people.
Ask Congress to SLOW DOWN on HR 811
Call
Congress for Open, Public Debate on HR 811
No secret vote counting, full public accountability
May 31, 2007
Dear
Representative _____________:
We are contacting you because we do not want HR 811 to be fast-tracked.
Our voting system is too important an issue not to allow time for public
debate.
We are alarmed that this bill leaves far too many unacceptable vulnerabilities
in our election process.
We urge you NOT to support HR 811.
We must do better than HR 811.
This bill federalizes secret vote counting
and invites -- rather than prevents --
systemic corruption of our elections.
We do not consent.
IN LIEU OF HR 811, WE PROPOSE:
1. Paper ballots, not paper trails
2. Federal BUYOUT of all touchscreen voting equipment
3. No secret vote counting, no secret records, no secret contracts,
and no trade secrecy in our public elections
4. No control of voting technologies by four White House appointees
5. No unfunded mandates
Please consider a workable, alternative proposal for essential election reform
I sent a copy of that to the yahoo newsgroup that I'm a part
of. Here is the main response counter to it that was posted.
Dear Philip (and everyone),
Among the organized groups participating in VotePA and this list, the
vast majority have indicated that they support HR 811 as the best
vehicle available to get voter-verified paper with audits and other
needed changes in time to meaningfully help protect the 2008 election
in Pennsylvania and in our entire nation.
HR 811 currently has 216 bi-partisan cosponsors in the US House.
A large coalition of national groups including VoteTrustUSA,
VerifiedVoting, Common Cause, MoveOn, PFAW, and others also strongly
support the bill. There are many other national, state, and local
organizations, political groups, and governmental groups that support
the bill as well.
Detractors include vendors (who stand to make larger profits if the
bill fails), election official (who are resisting the work it will take
to change our voting system to provide voter-verified paper and the
audits), and part of the so-called activist community such as you have
mentioned in your post who generally seem to claim the bill either does
not go far enough or in some cases that it is not a "perfect" bill.
Unfortunately, the vendors' and election officials' goal is to maintain
the status quo. Not surprisingly, the vendors and election officials
have employed high-priced professional lobbyists to fight the bill and
maintain that. On the activist side, the detractors have been very
vociferous but have in general not stated any concrete alternatives to
the bill that might realistically get in place in time to protect the
2008 election.
I will be posting a more detailed analysis and information as to what
is happening with the bill soon.
Marybeth
I still can't make a call here. I'm leaning slightly toward
the detractors because here's the rules: if there's any room for the GOP to
cheat then they'll do it. And after watching the dems in action, or rather
inaction, on both the war and impeachment I'm fairly certain that they won't
prosecute republicans if they break the law, let alone operate within the law
legally to disenfranchise voters. Those rules don't seem to apply to the
democrats. I guess I'll have to read more on this issue...
Catcam!
Could also be used as a spycam or house cam...
Back From Memorial Day Vacation Around
the Internets
Let's start light.
If you didn't know this Joss Whedon is continuing Buffy the
Vampire Slayer as a comic. I liked the show and thought it got better the longer
it went on. It wasn't entirely original, but he stole from many of the science
fiction sources that I respect. The first three issues are out. Joss is writing
one cycle of the "new" season eight and then turning it over to other writers. I
think he writes the final cycle of the series as well. There's an interview
with him here.
I like the first three issues. The art could be better. It
definitely feels like the show. Most of your fave characters are back. Still no
sign of Angel or Spike except in a dream sequence. Remember the bad witch who
was turned into a gerbil for awhile? She's back. Remember that guy that
Meadow Willow skinned alive? He's not entirely dead. Nuff said.
Definitely worth picking up.
I should have
published this on Memorial Day. Its Mark Twain's war poem.
More info about this here. It wasn't to be published until after his death,
which apparently wasn't exaggerated.
O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts,
go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go
forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our
God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to
cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to
drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in
pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us
to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us
to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes
of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames
of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail,
imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who
adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter
pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the
white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of
love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and
friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite
hearts. Amen.
I guess I don't have anything respectful to
say about Memorial Day,(see above post), at least not when it comes to recent
wars. You'd have to be an idiot to enlist now. I can understand
why
gangs are sending their members into the militia to learn skills. I imagine
that its always helpful to learn as many ways to kill someone as you can when
you're engaging in criminal activity (Can't wait to see those IEDs on American
streets. Should make my bus commute more interesting.) but what's everyone
else's excuse? If you fight in Iraq then you're fighting to terrorize and murder
sand niggers and protect oil company profits. It has nothing to do with
democracy. Period. The war should have ended long ago because they shouldn't
have found enough people to enlist in the ranks.
Speaking of the true motives behind the Iraq
War, its to keep the agreement in place that gives the Iraqi oil reserves to
multinationals. If you want this in cartoon form,
then Jim Hightower can
explain it. If you like
your truth in essay form:
This war will wind down when the oil distribution law, or
whatever they call it, is signed. It was all about the oil, from day one (really
from before day one). Once it is passed by the Iraqi Government that we set up
for just this very reason, we will start winding down and leave just enough
troops in Iraq to make sure that they don't renege on the law, and to keep Iran
in line. If this turns out to be the case, than Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and
everyone else in government and the oil companies should be put on trial for
murdering almost a million human beings for profit. Big Oil has gotten its hands
on all that light crude and can pump for another twenty years.
Bush will claim that we have done all we can do to bring
democracy to Iraq. He will claim that he doesn't want to waste more "innocent"
lives for people unwilling to stand up for themselves and turn to the Iraq Study
Group's recommendations (that was put together by James Baker III, THE NO1 Oil
Man), and take our troops out of the hard fighting in the cities and they will
stay on the big military installations with the premise that we are there to
make sure that Al Qaeda will not use Iraq for a training ground.
From Tom Moody, who
got it from an unknown artist.
I just think there's a real need for a
viable third party right now. We certainly needed it locally. (Did the Greens
run a candidate for mayor?) And I think we need it nationally. Here's the trick:
It probably can't be done by the usual suspects with your crazy ACORN/PIRG types
and your wish fulfillment candidacies. You don't have to win every seat. You
need to vie for 25 House seats and 5 Senate seats nationally. You need to work
with the dems and focus on republicans and whatever dems voted for continued
funding. There needs to be a third option, certainly for progressives but really
for everybody.
You need 1 million dollars to run
a viable house campaign at the federal level and you need 2 million dollars to
run a viable race at the senate level. Period. Otherwise you're being silly.
That's about 35 million. That's a lot of money, but not an impossible amount of
money to raise. What to call it? "The New Party" is taken but they haven't done
anything "new" in years. We've seen where the Green's all volunteer efforts have
taken us: nowhere fast. (New Rule: Build a new party around the canvass. Pay
your workers and occasionally ask them to pay themselves. Use Progressive
Discipline in firing and not the crazy cultlike ACORN/PIRG rules.) How about
"The Enlightenment Party"? Turn that new science lobby into something bigger...
More on this later. I'm going to codify
these rules when I have some more time.
It is a dark day in our nations
history. That sounds melodramatic - but it is true. Today America watched a
Democratic Party kick them square in the teeth - all in order to continue the
most unpopular war in a generation at the request of the most unpopular
president in a generation at a time polls show a larger percentage of the public
thinks America is going in the wrong direction than
ever recorded in polling history.
The numbers are not pretty.
First, 216 House Democrats
cast the key vote to send a blank check Iraq War funding bill over to the
Senate. As I reported at the beginning of the day and as the
Associated
Press now confirms, the vote on the rule was the vote that made it happen.
As the AP said: In a highly unusual maneuver, House Democratic leaders crafted
a procedure that allowed their rank and file to oppose money for the war, then
step aside so Republicans could advance it. Nauseating.
In the Senate, we saw lots of
promises and tough talk from senators telling us they were going to do
everything they could to stop the blank check. Some of them bragged that they
were going to vote against the bill - as if that was the ultimate sign of
heroics. Then,
not a single senator found the backbone to stand up to filibuster the bill a
la Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Apparently, Senate club etiquette comes even
before the lives of our troops. The blank check
sailed through the upper chamber on a vote of 80-14 with 38 Democrats (the
majority of the party) voting yes. In all, at a time when 82 percent of
Americans tell pollsters they want Congress to either approve funds for the war
with strict conditions or cut off all funding immediately, 90 percent of House
and Senate Democrats combined voted to give George W. Bush a blank check.
The worst part of it all was the
overt efforts to deceive the public - as if were all just a bunch of morons.
House Democrats have the nerve to
continue to insist the blank check they helped ram through the House was all
the Republicans doing, and that a sham vote on a GOP amendment today - which
most Democrats opposed for show - was the real vote for the war. But, again, as
the AP reported, it was their parliamentary motion - passed so quickly and under
the devious pretenses of mundane procedural necessity - that showed their
calculated complicity. Now, tonight, the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee is actually sending out fundraising emails, claiming: the House just
passed legislation that will go to the White House that includes critical issues
Democrats have been fighting for including canceling the Presidents blank check
in Iraq. Beyond nauseating.
Im not a purist nor am I a pox
on both their houses kind of guy. I have worked to elect Democratic politicians
and
I supported Democratic leaders when they pushed an Iraq funding bill that
included binding language to end the war. But what happened today was perhaps
the most stunning travesty Ive seen in a decade working in Democratic politics.
A Democratic Party that six months ago was elected on a promise to end the war
first tried to hide their complicity in continuing the war in the House, and
then gave a few token speeches as the blank check sailed through the Senate
club. And it all happened, as the
New York Times reported today, because these Democrats believed criticism
from President Bush - the man who
polls show is the
most unpopular president in three decades - seemed more politically
threatening to them than the anger Democrats knew they would draw from the
left.
Of course, according to Real Journalist Greg
Palast, the republicans are already trying to purge 8 million voters for the
2008 election. Palast has to have a hacker under his hire.
How does he do it.
Investigative
reporter Greg Palast says 4.5 million votes
will be shoplifted in 2008, thanks largely to the Rove-bots that have been
placed in the Justice Department following the U.S. Attorney firings. Being the
guy who uncovered the voter purge lists of 2000 that disenfranchised black
voters, hes worth listening to, even if the mainstream press chooses not to.
This time around, he claims to
have the 500 emails that the House subpoenaed and Karl Rove claims were deleted
forever. They prove definitively, says Palast, that the Justice Department is
infested with operatives taking orders from Rove to steal upcoming elections for
Republicans and permanently alter the Department.
The clownocracy of Bush and
Rove is criminal and even evil in its attempts to steal past and future
elections, according to Palast, and can only be stopped if Democrats find their
souls and find their balls.
In an updated new version of
his best-selling book,
Armed Madhouse,
Palast lays out the case for the future theft of the presidency, along with lots
of other Executive malfeasance. I chatted with him about the role of the Justice
Department in this scheme, and what it means for the viability of our
democracy.
From Paul Pope, a great comix and
science fiction artist who has a blog.
Stunning video profile of Hugo Chavez by
Real Journalist Greg Palast. There are three parts (part
one here and part three
here) to the interview at the Youtubes. Part two is what I'm showing here.
Contrast this with the
Hightower vid of what we're doing in Iraq and what we would probably like
Venezuela to be. The United States, especially under this particularly vile
Republican crew, has become a force for evil in this world. There really isn't
any other way to put it.
Yep. Those Republicans are completely
evil. So the Democrats wouldn't give President Bush a blank check on the war,
right? Wrong. It looks like they're folding big time. Way to fight fellas. The
reviews, from people who have, quite frankly, been apologists for the dems so
far, have not been kind.
They never learn. They just never f*cking learn. They get the majority and
they still act like they're in the minority. It's ironic that right before
Memorial Day they vote to give this president a blank check to send more good
men to
Arlington Cemetery.
STOP THIS WAR.
The only reason the Democrats aren't going to suffer
electorally for this is because next year is a presidential year, and a
Democratic president must end the war or suffer punishment like impeachment.
But I don't get the Democrats. I just don't get them.
They've added almost a whole Friedman (until September) and what do they think
is gonna happen then? The right will claim the surge is working even though it
isn't, they'll request six more string-free months, and more Americans die for
no damn reason.
Makes me sick.
From a
poster at the Booman Tribune:
Actions speak louder than words.
And yet without the Democrats, we would have not invaded
Iraq. Without their votes they would not have the supplemental funding for the
last 4 years. Without their compliance and complicity there would not be the
structure in place now for Bush to declare himself Maximum Leader for life.
Why. Why is ANYONE here surprised that the Dems caved?
What actual hope did any of you have? Actions are louder than words, and the
actions of the Democratic Party in the last five years are "We made a good show
of this but we're going along because dammit, we want the power Bush is
accumulating. We like his soft fascism. We want to use it against our own
people because they don't know best...we do."
And they will keep taking us for granted, because our other
choice is letting the GOP keep control.
I'll
comment more on this later.
May 20
Late Sunday Night Around the Internets
Also crossposted at my high brow
dirty page: the Red Light District. Hey it was well drawn and while prurient
acceptable to general audiences.
It looks like Tuesday's elections had
some good results. It would have been nice to see some competition at the higher
level races, but it looks like we lose two less than great councilmen and get
some people who might actually do some good. Election reactions from the usual
suspects
here and
here.
Meanwhile, over at the Booman
Tribune, they've discovered that Chairman Kos and his henchmen (and henchladies)
ban people who speak critically of Israel. That's why I got banned so I should
know. Here's one of the writers at Booman:
If Daily Kos' banning of
Steve Amsel and Eileen Fleming, two peace activists who support the rights of
the Palestinian people, a few days ago, and three
other peace activists that preceded them, were not enough, today Daily Kos
banned two Palestinian peace activists. This action was taken in an apparent
attempt to appease a small group of right wing proIsrael supporters who have
invaded Daily Kos. If anyone believes that of course they should probably take
ownership of the Brooklyn Bridge. The true source of all of these banning is
not yet evident, but no one is ready to believe that Daily Kos is getting
ready to be sold to an AIPAC subsidiary.
As for Daily Kos' investment in
progressive and liberal issues like civil and human rights, the word is that
Kos the owner doesn't care one way or another about the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, even though it is a core issue in American foreign policy. That's an
interesting prospective when a Left Wing Democrat does not care about human
rights issues. Because many people believe that the Left Wing of the
Democratic party is taking its lead from the netroots, places like Daily Kos,
which is the largest political blog on the internet, not giving a damned one
way or another about human rights issues is not exactly what a typical liberal
or progressive Democrat would expect from a blog that purports to be liberal
or progressive. Leadership in civil and human rights is certainly not what any
liberal or progressive Democrat will find at Daily Kos.
Here are the obituaries for the most
recent voices snuffed out by Daily Kos, both of whose writings cried out for
justice for the Palestinian people, especially because they are both
Palestinian.
Read the
whole thing
here. As I've said before, at the bottom of this page: "Bottom Line:
Despite all the mean things I've said I read Kos daily. You kind of have to.
But I don't think he can be a leader for all democrats and certainly not for
progressives."
Related, at
Muzzle Watch (reminds
me of what Hesh of the Sopranos said of the Christian Right's love of Israel:
"Just wait."):
The recent death of Jerry Falwell
can serve as an opportunity to reflect on the growing Christian Zionist (CZ)
movement and how such a movement is related to other establishment pro-Israel
groups such as The David Project, ADL and AIPAC. To be clear, there is a
Faustian bargain being forged, for short term political and financial gain,
Israel and the American Jewish establishment are willing to engage with people
such as
John Hagee of the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) who is contemptuous
of Muslims, dismissive of gays, possesses a triumphalist theology and opposes
a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
This bargain also entails muzzling -
American Jewish leaders who have been critical of CUFI sponsored local Nights
to Honor Israel say they have been
pressured into silence.
The pressure has been
enormous, said a prominent Jewish leader who said he was contacted by local
community officials after he raised questions about a local Christians
United For Israel (CUFI) event. I cant even talk about it now; I feel a
real sense of intimidation because people in our own community are saying
Im opposing something thats good for Israel, that Im hurting Israel.
In terms of Falwell specifically,
although their relationship has not been seamless, Abe Foxman of the
Anti-Defamation League has called Falwell a towering figure of the religious
right and a dear
friend of Israel
The fly in the ointment, beyond the
occasional oopsy anti-Semitic utterances, eg, the antichrist is probably a
Jewish man alive today, (condemned by Foxman of the ADL), is that the
relationship between the Christian Zionists (like Falwell, Pat Robertson and
Hagee) and Jews is roughly that of Germany to the Soviet Union before Germany
invaded its ally. Christian Zionists believe that as one large piece of the
Apocalypse endgame, a unified Jewish state must exist over all of what is now
Israel and Palestine and that a new temple must be built on temple mount. The
important take home point is that within the framework of Christian Zionist
belief is the notion that at the time of Christs second coming, Jews will be
offered a choice to convert to Christianity or immediately be condemned to
hell or some reasonable facsimile.
Speaking of the Sopranos, good
episode tonight. I do see an out for Tony. Kill Phil first and that leaves the
movie producer as the head of New York, a guy that Tony can work with. He also
quiets down the need for a New York retaliation. I can't believe somebody went
after Meadow. Tony was in the right. He was there for both of kids tonight. I
guess that's what makes the series so interesting. He's not always evil.
May 15
I'm just awaiting the election results like
everyone else.
And
I've been watching this explanation by Jim Hightower as to why we're in Iraq.
You'll all be shocked to learn that it has nothing to do with democracy, but its
direct opposite.
May 12
Local
stuff about the fine opponents of
Kraus and
Dowd. I really hate their opponents now.
Funny
toon by Stephanie McMillan.
Mean Ol
Richard Dawkins
talks about why he isn't like a fundamentalist. (I don't think he says this
but atheists don't have real political power. I think that's the real
difference. I suppose if we were footsoldiers in the republican party...)
Youre preaching to the choir. Whats
the point?
The nonbelieving choir is much bigger
than people think, and it desperately needs encouragement to come out. Judging
by the thanks that showered my North American book tour, my articulation of
hitherto closeted thoughts is heard as a kind of liberation. The atheist choir,
moreover, is too ready to observe societys convention of according special
respect to faith, and it goes along with societys lamentable habit of labelling
small children with the religion of their parents. Youd never speak of a
Marxist child or a monetarist child. So why give religion a free pass to
indoctrinate helpless children? There is no such thing as a Christian child:
only a child of Christian parents.
Youre as much a fundamentalist as
those you criticize.
No, please, do not mistake passion, which
can change its mind, for fundamentalism, which never will. Passion for passion,
an evangelical Christian and I may be evenly matched. But we are not equally
fundamentalist. The true scientist, however passionately he may believe, in
evolution for example, knows exactly what would change his mind: evidence! The
fundamentalist knows that nothing will.
Im an atheist, but people need
religion.
What are you going to put in its place?
How are you going to fill the need, or comfort the bereaved?
What patronising
condescension! You and I are too intelligent and well educated to need
religion. But ordinary people, hoi polloi, Orwellian proles, Huxleian Deltas and
Epsilons need religion. In any case, the universe doesnt owe us comfort, and
the fact that a belief is comforting doesnt make it true. The God Delusion
doesnt set out to be comforting, but at least it is not a placebo. I am pleased
that the opening lines of my own Unweaving the Rainbow have been used to
give solace at funerals.
When asked whether she believed in God,
Golda Meir said: I believe in the Jewish people, and the Jewish people believe
in God. I recently heard a prize specimen of Im-an-atheist-buttery quote this
and then substitute his own version: I believe in people, and people believe in
God. I too believe in people. I believe that, given proper encouragement to
think, and given the best information available, people will courageously cast
aside celestial comfort blankets and lead intellectually fulfilled, emotionally
liberated lives.
First, the Bush Administration has
been aware of this matter for months (since October 2006) and never took any
action until less than two weeks before SiCKO is set to premiere at the
Cannes Film Festival and a little more than a month before it is scheduled to
open in the United States.
Second, the health care and insurance
industry, which is exposed in the movie and has expressed concerns about the
impact of the movie on their industries, is a major corporate underwriter of
President George W. Bush and the Republican Party, having contributed over $13
million to the Bush presidential campaign in 2004 and more than $180 million to
Republican candidates over the last two campaign cycles.
It is well documented that the
industry is very concerned about the impact of SiCKO. They have
threatened their employees if they talk to me. They have set up special internal
crises lines should I show up at their headquarters. Employees have been warned
about the consequences of participating in SiCKO. Despite this, some
employees, at great risk to themselves, have gone on camera to tell the American
people the truth about the health care industry. I can understand why that
industry's main recipient of its contributions -- President Bush -- would want
to harass, intimidate and potentially prevent this film from having its widest
possible audience.
And, third, this investigation is
being opened in the wake of misleading attacks on the purpose of the Cuba trip
from a possible leading Republican candidate for president, Fred Thompson, a
major conservative newspaper, The New York Post, and various right wing
blogs.
Now similar cries are coming from
Scotland and France. May 3 elections in Scotland using new electronic counting
systems resulted in as many as 100,000 votes being classed as "spoilt papers."
(About 90,000 such ballots from Ohio 2004 remain uncounted to this day).
Complex methods of tabulating and weighting the Scottish votes yielded "chaos."
Several vote counts were suspended. In some races the tally of rejected ballots
was greater than some candidates' winning margin. "This is a temporary
interruption to one small aspect of the overall process," says a spokeswoman for
DRS, the company responsible for the vote counting technology.
The language in France has not been so polite. A watershed presidential election
has just been won by Nicolas Sarkozy, a blunt right-wing Reagan-Bush-style
extremist over the socialist Segolene Royal. Sarkozy is a hard-edged
authoritarian whose intense anti-immigrant rhetoric matches his support for the
American war in Iraq and his avowed intent to slash France's social service
system, including a public health program widely considered among the best in
the world.
Like the balloting in Ukraine, the US, Scotland and Mexico, Sarkozy's victory
was marred by angry, widespread complaints about dubious vote counts whose
discrepancies always seem to favor the rightist candidate. Throughout France,
the cry has arisen that the conservatives have done to Segolene Royal what
Bush/Rove did to John Kerry.
In the not-so-distant past, other elections were engineered by George H.W. Bush,
head of the Central Intelligence Agency and father of the current White House
resident. During the Reagan-Bush presidencies, in the Philippines, Nicaragua, El
Salvador and other key third world nations, expected leftist triumphs somehow
morphed into rightist coups. "CIA destabilizations are nothing new," said former
CIA station chief and Medal of Merit winner John Stockwell in 1987. "Guatemala
in 1954, Brazil, Ghana, Chile, the Congo, Iran, Panama, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador,
Uruguay---the CIA organized the overthrow of constitutional democracy."
The recent trend to privatizing vote counts, with corporations claiming
"proprietary rights" to keep their hardware and software covert, has added a new
dimension to an old tradition. The recent "e-victories" in the US and France
have significantly tipped to the right the global balance among the major
powers. So while Ohio and California conduct their studies of electronic voting,
the whole world will be watching.
For over a decade, given the failures
of elected politicians, Mike Gravel has been engaged in some extraordinary
research and consultations with leading constitutional law experts about the
need to enact another check to the faltering checks and balances--namely, the
National Initiative for Democracy, a proposed law that empowers the people as
lawmakers.
Before you roll your eyes over what you
feel is an unworkable utopian scheme, go to
http://nationalinitiative.us to read
the detailed constitutional justification for the sovereign right of the people
to directly alter their government and make laws.
Among other legal scholars, Yale Law
School Professor, Akhil Reed Amar and legal author, Alan Hirsch, have argued
that the Constitution recognizes the inalienable right of the American people to
amend the Constitution directly through majority vote. What the Constitution
does not do is spell out the procedures for such a sovereign right.
Here
are the roundup of those online illegal campaign worker stories. I think
Agent Ska had it first. Then the
2 PJs came in, but they added a broader legal context.
I think the best analysis came from the admiral, who clued me into this
union angle I had never even imagined...who is the admiral? How does he know so
much about the city's players? Curious.
What's also revealing is that the photos were leaked to online
sources. I guess that's the future...
Cory Doctorow on the recent posted numbers
scandal. Related: Die DMCA,
also a part of
Phil's Music Show, now in widescreen.
CORY DOCTOROW, BOING BOING -
Michael Ayers, the chairman of the AACS-LA (the organization that sent hundreds
of legal threats to websites that published the random 16-byte number that
represented one of the keys for cracking the copy-prevention on HD-DVDs) has
given an interview to the BBC in which he vows to use technical and legal means
to shut down the 802,000+ websites that have reproduced the key. Michael says
that this doesn't impact free speech -- that it's possible to discuss the crack
and DRM in general without reproducing the key. I think he's wrong. I just
taught a class at USC where we talked about this crack as part of our
coursework, and part of my lesson was talking about the ease with which this
information can be retrieved and spread -- and how that makes anti-copying
systems futile. For my students, seeing just how little information was needed
to undo the AACS scheme was critical to understanding its fragility. Indeed, one
of my students posted this key to the class blog to show his fellow students how
trivial this was, prompting AACS to threaten me with legal action as well. . .
The companies that made AACS spent millions and years at it. The hackers who
broke it did so in days, for laughs, for free. More people now know how to crack
HD-DVD than own an HD-DVD player.
I always hear the Iraqi pro-war crowd
interviewed on television from foreign capitals (they can only appear on
television from the safety of foreign capitals because I defy anyone to be
publicly pro-war in Iraq). They refuse to believe that their religiously
inclined, sectarian political parties fueled this whole Sunni/Shia conflict.
They refuse to acknowledge that this situation is a direct result of the war and
occupation. They go on and on about Iraq's history and how Sunnis and Shia were
always in conflict and I hate that. I hate that a handful of expats who haven't
been to the country in decades pretend to know more about it than people
actually living there.
I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn't know what
our neighbors were- we didn't care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one
bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You
only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives
revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it-
depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the
middle of the night.
Speaking of the wonderful role that religion
plays in demonizing women, there's this great
new site
called Madre. Here's a snippet from one article that involves Iraq and how
you can teleport a smart computer programmer like Riverbend to the 14th century:
This campaign of genderbased violence
was intended to subjugate women as a first step in the creation of an Islamist
state. As Mithal Alusi, one of 30 Iraqi legislators who called for the
protection of women's human rights in a 2006 declaration said, "These attempts
to intimidate women are attempts to terrorize society."26
In fact, violence against women is a primary weapon in the arsenal of
fundamentalists of various religions, who seek to impose their political agenda
on society. Often, the first salvo in a war for theocracy is a systematic attack
on women and minorities who represent or demand an alternative or competing
vision for society. These initial targets are usually the most marginalized and,
therefore, most vulnerable members of society, and once they are dealt with,
fundamentalist forces then proceed towards less vulnerable targets.
"This campaign of gender-based violence
was intended to subjugate women as a first step
in the creation of an Islamist state."
In Iraq, women, Christians, and
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, and intersex (LGBTTI) Iraqis
have been among the Islamists' first targets of violence. For example, the
Mujahadin Shura Group vows to kill any woman seen in public without a headscarf.
Mujahadin Shura listed among its reasons for opposing the January 2005 Iraqi
elections the need to prevent Iraq from "becoming homosexual. " In the northern
city of Mosul, the group has targeted Christian women with a campaign of murder,
kidnapping, rape, and sexual enslavement. According to the Union of the
Unemployed,27
groups such as this use the most violent and inhumane methods to impose their
will, targeting "anyone who disagrees with them and does not observe their way
of living."28
It's Not Just an Abortion Ban: The Christian Right's Global
Agenda
Bringing It All Back Home
For the most part, policies such as
these did not cost the Republican Party votes because they didn't impact women
in the USβat least not at first. But the US attack on women's reproductive
rights abroad followed by the recent Supreme Court ruling is a stark reminder
that ideologically speaking, there's no such thing as foreign policy. The
Christian Right seeks to restrict women's rights domestically, just as they have
internationallyas part of one coherent "vision" that includes much more than a
world without abortion.
We only need to look at countries
where religious fundamentalists have gained the upper hand in policymaking to
see where the US Christian Right would like to take us. Fundamentalists of
different religions draw on different texts and operate in diverse cultures and
contexts. But when it comes to their rigid and retrograde gender ideology, they
show a lot more commonalities than differences. The Christian Right's agenda
extends to restricting women's rights to work, equality before the law,
education, and freedom from a range of gender-based human rights abuses,
including domestic battery and marital rape. And the Christian Right's "vision"
goes beyond attacks on any narrowly construed notion of "women's rights."
They're angling for more of the kind of messianic militarism that characterized
Bush's response to 9/11 (which he originally called a "crusade"), and more
neoliberal economic policies that promise greater ruin to the world's poor
people and ecology.
May 4
Friday Art Break
From
Boing
Boing. How to make every movie poster a grindhouse poster.
From Tom
Moody: First piece: some of Tom's Art. Second piece: Rube Goldbergesque baby
torture machine.
May 2
By the way, NARAL gets a lot of flack
(Chairman Kos and Oliver Willis spring to mind) for supporting republicans
sometimes. Well, that might be tactically suspect, but the reason they do that
is that there are many dems that aren't pro choice, or when it comes to stem
cells, even pro progress. And of course its apparently unthinkable for dems to
ever use a fillibuster to stop a horrific republican appointment to the Supreme
Court...sigh. This really is a fight between reason and superstition. I wish the
secularists in Turkey
all
the luck in the world. They have a right to be worried. That's a fight worth
fighting here and abroad.
Now there's a book they won't teach you in
college. Won't be assigned a lot of
Ivan Illich (whole text
of Deschooling Society
here) and Paulo Freire
either. This first paragraph from an alternet article from Barbara Ehrenreich
reminded of the late John Holt. Here it is:
"The most important thing any teacher has to learn, not to be learned in
any school of education I ever heard of, can be expressed in seven words:
Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the
activity of learners."
"It's not that I feel that school is a good idea gone wrong, but a wrong
idea from the word go. It's a nutty notion that we can have a place where
nothing but learning happens, cut off from the rest of life."
"Education... now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous
of all the social inventions of mankind. It is the deepest foundation of the
modern slave state, in which most people feel themselves to be nothing but
producers, consumers, spectators, and 'fans,' driven more and more, in all
parts of their lives, by greed, envy, and fear. My concern is not to improve
'education' but to do away with it, to end the ugly and antihuman business of
people-shaping and to allow and help people to shape themselves."
Now here's a weird call I got and I got it
twice. Somebody called me and there was this recorded question about this new
Wal Mart that's being built in the East Hills area, but then it turned into one
of those sleazy pressure calls which pointed out that the Walmart might impact
(I wish I had recorded it) the black owned Giant Eagle across the street. It's
overall impact is "We don't want to put the black owned Giant Eagle out of
business do we? Come on." Using my ace reporting skills I'm going to guess that
these calls were funded by the black woman who owns that Giant Eagle. I guess
its meant to create some kind of groundswell of support against the Wal Mart.
But we need jobs around here.
Rage
Against the Machine doesn't like President Bush. I don't need hanging or
shootings you pinko commies. Just simultaneous impeachment. Let's restrain
ourselves a bit.
April 26
First response to the debate: I'm voting for
that cranky dem ex senator from Alaska, even though I wasn't aware that Alaska
had an ex dem senator. He's kind of a radical in that he's ruling out nukes as a
first strike weapon. Back to reality: still torn between Obama and Edwards.
Related: I'm probably voting for the Agent Ska
endorsement slate because a 20 year old has better sources in local politics
than I do. And one more thing:
The Sith iz kewl! I'm sending her this action figure cause that's what girls
like:
Important Youtube update about what's
happening in the electoral fraud story from Mark Crispin Miller or: The most
important story of the new century that no one respectable covers.
April 24
Speaking of Rudy Rucker and Posthuman Blues,
here's a snippet of a great short story called "Postsingularity
Outtakes" published online. Around part 6 I start getting lost but it reads
cool:
1: The Singularity.
The Singularity happened when, encouraged by his business backers, President
Dick Dibbs sent an eggcase of nants to Mars. Nants were self-reproducing
nanomachines: solar-powered, networked, capable of gnatlike flight, and
single-mindedly focused on transforming all available material into more nants.
In a couple of years, the nants had eaten Mars, turning the red planet into a
Dyson sphere of a duodecillion nanomachines, a three-millimeter-thick shell half
a billion kilometers across, with Earth and the Sun trapped inside.
The stars were hidden by giant
ads; in daytime the ads were a silvery background to the sky. Dibbss backers
were well-pleased. And behind the scenes the nant swarm was solving a number of
intractable problems in computer science, mathematical physics, and process
design; these results were privily beamed to the nants parent corporation,
Nantel. But before Nantel could profit from the discoveries, the nants set to
work chewing up Earth.
Its part of online science fiction effort
called Flurb.
My old amsat new world disorder pal Jason
Lubyk is up to some new tricks. I interviewed RU as well some years ago. Hard to
listen to the podcast but I found the part about changing your own skin color
pretty cool. I'd go for an all black or blue look, with white line tatoos...I
borrowed this blurb from Doc Menlo.
I think, and I might be off by about a dozen
or so bodies, 400 Iraqis lost their lives this week. Try reading the last week
of Juan Cole and not weeping...
The
very sad history of the war against pot, arguably a miracle plant that we
should be exploiting. You might notice that I've added a few NORML ads to my tv
station above.
Well the shootings were horrible. And an
English major. I think I speak for all English majors in that we don't think he
represents us. I
used to
think this was just another reason to support gun control. I no longer think
this for a number of reasons. One, gun prohibition would work just as well as
drug prohibition, which means that it works great if you're trying to create a
criminal cartel that makes lots of money selling guns. He probably could've
gotten better guns off the street and cheaper too. Two, I no longer trust my
government. I want the right to buy a gun in case things go south. I admire the
White Rose society but I think I prefer a more Alamo/300 like exit. Three, I
don't think the answer is everybody having a loaded gun at all times but I wish
ballistic shields (I favor the
Baker Batshield for pathetic and predictable fanboy reasons.) and bullet
proof vests were as easy to get as loaded weapons. Ditto for rubber bullets.
Elsewhere: comparisons to the shooting and
what's
happening in Iraq. And oddly good coverage from Boing Boing
here
and
here.
April 16
Monday Morning Around the Internets
Two good posts from the People's
Republic from Pittsburgh.
One is about how Bill announced that he won't be making an independent run
(He had to take a deal for that ever elusive councilmanic chairmanship I just
know it..) and after you read this post you might find yourself asking why would
I ever support Bill Peduto again? I mean really.
Two, there's a piece about a letter from Catherine McNeilly--that he
discovered on a WTAE blog (They do real news on television?..I had no idea. I'll
have to start reading that.) that she apparently paid for if I'm reading this
correctly. Short version: despite the settlement nothing has changed in the
mayor's office. I guess he's Don Imus in his twenties. What a great several
years we have ahead of us...
Tonight was the first great Sopranos episode
I've seen in awhile. Plotlines for the future: they dig up Mr. Pink's body and
desecrate it...? If the New York boss kills Christophuh would Tony really mind?
A New York vs. New Jersey war? Is that possible? Who's Doc? Also great: Jericho
(Best black character ever. He's black see so no one notices that he's the
smartest guy in town. Sure, he knows morse code, is an expert shot but nevermind
those nappy headed people...), The Shield has been great, and Heroes will soon
return. I watch a lot of tv.
I'm also creating
my own channel here. The goal is to create early MTV which you could watch
for hours because the music was so good.
I didn't go to
Flux but Agent Ska did. She has pics. Over in the comments I make a humble
proposal: Pittsburgh and Braddock should switch mayors. Pittsburgh would be much
much better off. John should run for something higher. Period.
Briggs has become "The
Great Black Hope". Did you ever think that the conditions of poor white men
in Eastern Europe are tougher than even for black men in the US? Something to
think about.
I got a letter in my comments section. I'm
printing it whole:
Harvey Pekar and his
Pittsburgh illustrator Ed Piskor will speak and show some work at Slippery Rock
University's Kaleidoscope Arts Festival
http://academics.sru.edu/HFPA/kaleidoscope/performers.htm on April 20th at
12:30 p.m.. Does anyone at this site have some suggestions about how we can best
get the word out to those who'd like to be there. Should be fun.
Well I could mention it here on the frontpage and feature Ed's
work. Comics people know Harvey Pekar of course. You might know him from that
cool film that came out and which was pretty good.
Don Imus is a racist. Much as I love him, I can see it in him. And yes,
we're all racists; but Imus stepped in it bad, and it will be fascinating
and good to see him reform. I wish him well.
At least he apologized and is doing time. What about all the journalists
who were wrong on Iraq? The Rutgers women held a press conference saying
Imus hurt their feelings. What about all the American and Iraqi families
destroyed, torn apart, blown to the wind, etc., by one of the greatest
mistakes in history? Hordes of journalists out of desire for influence and
status peddled the administration's lies and distorted reality to
rationalize attacking Iraq. Tom Friedman saw
the war as good
because of suicide bombers in Israel. Ken Pollack didn't see any real
strife between Sunnis and Shi'as,
and neither did Kristol and Kaplan, and none of them thought the Israeli
occupation had any bearing on the case. I could go on and on.
At the very least they showed terrible judgment. Last year I watched
Pollack rationalize one or two of his errors before the Council on Foreign
Relations. George Packer sought to excuse his credulity, wishy-washily, in
Assassin's Gate. Don't they owe us a lot more? Don't the New York Times,
Washington Post, and WSJ owe us investigations of their conduct and
sourcing? The only reporter to suffer professionally for getting us into
this horror is Judith Miller. Shouldn't there be more?
April 12
I am just a huge Kurt Vonnegut fan. I'm not
surprised by his death, however, in that he was a manic chain smoker. A pack a
day guy at least. Its amazing that he lasted until 84. I also think he died
creatively about 23 years ago, right after the publication of Deadeye Dick. His
sixties stuff is definitely the best. Recommend Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of
Champions, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater and his short story collection Welcome to
the Monkey House. Oh, and Slaughterhouse 5 is great too. He also wins my award
for best science fiction title ever: The Big Space Fuck. Here's a collection of
Mr. Vonnegut's best quotes over the years. By the way, if you're linked to
certain people on the Internets they are probably a part of your Karass,
which is defined as "A group of people who, unbeknownst to them, are
collectively doing God's
will in carrying out a specific, common, task. A karass is driven forward in
time and space by tension within the karass."
Human beings will be happier not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or
eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to
inhabit primitive communities again. Thats my utopia.
Mere opinions, in fact, were as likely to govern people's actions as
hard evidence, and were subject to sudden reversals as hard evidence could
never be. So the Galapagos Islands could be hell in one moment and heaven
in the next, and Julius Caesar could be a statesman in one moment and a
butcher in the next, and Ecuadorian paper money could be traded for food,
shelter, and clothing in one moment and line the bottom of a birdcage in the
next, and the universe could be created by God Almighty in one moment and by a
big explosion in the next and on and on.
Galapagos (1985)
I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so
far, but I think its a very poor scheme for survival.
London Observer (27 December 1987)
There is no way a beautiful woman can live up to what she looks like for
any appreciable length of time.
And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or
murmur or think at some point, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
"Knowing What's Nice", an essay from In These Times (2003)
We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is
trying to get rid of us, as well it should.
On Humans, in an appearance on The Daily Show (September 2005)
I have wanted to give Iraq a lesson in democracybecause were
experienced with it, you know. And, in democracy, after a hundred years, you
have to let your slaves go. And, after a hundred and fifty years, you have to
let your women vote. And, at the beginning of democracy, is that quite a bit
of genocide and ethnic cleansing is quite okay. And thats whats going on
now.
Appearance on The Daily Show (September 2005)
I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine
engineer. I can't help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he
or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. Thats why weve got
giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.
On Evolution vs. Intelligent Design, on The Daily Show (September
2005)
(talking about when he tells his wife he's going out to buy an
envelope) Oh, she says well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't
you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I
pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to
have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot
of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I
give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And,
and I don't know. The moral of the story is, is we're here on Earth to fart
around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the
computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals.
You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all
anymore.
People hate it when they're tickled because laughter is not pleasant, if
it goes on too long. I think it's a desperate sort of convulsion in desperate
circumstances, which helps a little.
Its Easter Sunday which means that its a
good time for atheist blogging. First up
Blog Against Theocracy: Here's
the petition I signed:
We, the undersigned, call upon
elected and appointed officials to join us in reaffirming America's religious
freedom by demonstrating a commitment to the following:
Every American should have the
right to make personal decisions -- about family life, reproductive health,
end of life care and other matters of personal conscience.
American tax dollars should not
go to charities that discriminate in hiring based on religious belief or that
promote a particular religious faith as a requirement for receiving services.
Political candidates should not
be endorsed or opposed by houses of worship.
Public schools should teach with
academic integrity and without the promotion of religious preference or
belief.
Decisions about scientific and
health policies should be based on the best available scientific data, not on
religious doctrine.
We join together, as the most
diverse nation in the world, to commit ourselves to defending and preserving
this freedom.
Related: Sam Harris on Faith vs.
Reason.
Speaking of Christian Jihads, how goes it in
Iraq? Here's this gem from Undernews:
BRITISH
GOVERNMENT SCIENTISTS CONFIRM ESTIMATE OF 650,000 IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS
RICHARDHORTON,
GUARDIAN, UK - Our collective failure has been to take our political
leaders at their word. This week the BBC reported that the government's own
scientists advised ministers that the Johns Hopkins study on Iraq civilian
mortality was accurate and reliable, following a freedom of information
request by the reporter Owen Bennett-Jones. This paper was published in the
Lancet last October. It estimated that 650,000 Iraqi civilians had died since
the American and British led invasion in March 2003.
Immediately after publication, the prime minister's official spokesman said
that the Lancet's study "was not one we believe to be anywhere near accurate".
The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said that the Lancet figures were
"extrapolated" and a "leap". President Bush said: "I don't consider it a
credible report".
Scientists at the UK's Department for International Development thought
differently. They concluded that the study's methods were "tried and tested".
Indeed, the Johns Hopkins approach would likely lead to an "underestimation of
mortality".
The Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the research was
"robust", close to "best practice", and "balanced". He recommended "caution in
publicly criticizing the study".
When these recommendations went to the prime minister's advisers, they were
horrified. One person briefing Tony Blair wrote: "Are we really sure that the
report is likely to be right? That is certainly what the brief implies?" A
Foreign and Commonwealth Office official was forced to conclude that the
government "should not be rubbishing the Lancet".
The prime minister's adviser finally gave in. He wrote: "The survey
methodology used here cannot be rubbished, it is a tried and tested way of
measuring mortality in conflict zones".
Now, read the above post and follow
it to this
conclusion. Froth, who's in law enforcement ,
says what you
would think (I wonder if Froth could
say what these guys are saying...? Just an open question of curiosity (On
second thought, all of those guys are retired I think)...) he would say about
the issue. But a couple of points: First, we don't know that POG has done this.
I don't see how they could do it even if they wanted to. Everyone is watching
them. Two, I could see where somebody could look at the war and come to the
conclusion that non violence hasn't worked. I suppose if we march another four
years we can watch another half million Iraqis/Iranians die. I'm sure the
marching will make us feel so much better. Three: Froth makes an argument that
the marines are just doing their duty and following orders. If I recall, the
"I'm just following orders" defense didn't go over too well in Nuremberg. And,
quite frankly, it shouldn't have. Who but the most naive and simple among us
think we're fighting for democracy over there? We're there to steal their oil
and terrorize the populace into submission. It is a volunteer force? They can
take responsibility for their actions, right? They're legitimate targets of the
resistance....
April 5
Light posting until the weekend, obviously. I have updated my
channel though.
Correction: Jeff Simmons, just back from touring in
Spain, writes in to tell me that he was never NEVER married to Jill West. My bad
as they say. I probably read it on the Internets and thought it was true. More
from that email from Joff when I have more time to write...
Was leaning strongly toward Edwards until he
betrayed bloggers, and atheist bloggers at that. Now, I was leaning toward Obama,
until he said
that we should get rid of the timelines in the spending bill. This tells the
world that there's no difference between the parties. None at all. And not a
decent third party in sight....Edwards and Obama are even again.
April 1
I've quit blogging and I've joined a
monastery. Imaginary beings in the sky rule my world, or at least the part of
the world I was born in. Besides, I just can't go "negative" anymore. Or at
least that's what I said after I took the deal for City Council Chairman.
And now: This special message about the dangers of communism.
March 28
Speaking of my old high school pal
Paul R. Shaffer, who needed
to know what Marshall Rogers was like, he
now does this. He works as a psychologist and apparently he's better looking
than I am. We sort of took a turn away from each other when he went to Oral
Roberts U but we still trade emails occasionally. I will, however, never forgive
him for stealing my Dave Cockrum run of the X Men. He has a very cute daughter.
He's also divorced despite writing a book about relationship counseling.
Related: I also grew up with two drummers. You might have heard of
Joffo. He plays with
a little known band called the
Houserockers. He can be
seen briefly singing the praises of His Mentor and Patron Saint
Joe Grushecky in this
Youtube clip.
(Jeff "Joffo"
Simmons doing his best Billy Cobham, or more accurately in the talent
department, Buddy Miles impression...)
And he's married
to this...woman? No fuckin' way...! Now I'm jealous...wasn't he married to
Jill West for awhile...I'm not going there....(His wife
has a nice voice too...) I would never say this to his face but I'm really
proud of him. Also: one of the best natural athletes I've ever known. Jeff used
to ride his bike from hilly Penn Hills, and it was a crappy yellow 10 speed, to
hilly Monroeville, atop the hill where the Showcase theater used to be, everyday
and he never walked his bike. I wish I could have persuaded him to go out for
the track team. (He used to run miles with ex pro football player Tom Flynn...)
He would have gotten a free ride at a college somewhere...
Jeff's wife. In the immortal words of Frozone "That ain't
right". I can't even get a date for a movie. True, I'm not trying anymore but
still....Gawd I hates you rock n roll people...
My other best high school pal, Bob
Napolitano, was probably a more talented drummer (and Jeff, who used to, I don't
know, suck...got really good. Loved that short lived two lead guitarists band
that played the Rush covers Joffo was in....) but I don't think he has an
internet presence. So he doesn't exist. That's life in the Matrix booboo...
March 27
Earlier, or down below since I won't update
my permalinks, I made the point that I was too dangerous for Duquesne University
as my site would no longer appear on Explorer. It turns out that I am not,
sniff, too dangerous for college kids. Turns out that IE blanks out when certain
types of javascript are introduced to your code. I have since removed that
script, but I suppose I have accidentally learned a way to block all IE users.
I'm not sure if that's something that I want to do. I will work on being more
dangerous in the future, however. So that even college kids must be protected
from my dangerous dangerous thoughts.
Rest in peace
Marshall Rogers, one of the best Batman artists ever. He was also a really
nice guy in person. And as my buddy Paul asked me after I met him (and Len Wein)
at a 1980 comicon "was he kind of a genius type?" I said "yep". Below: Another
candidate that Bill Peduto wouldn't run against because he didn't want to go
"negative". Drawn by the late Marshall Rogers.
So what do you want to do with this blog?
That was a question asked at another blog but you could ask it here as well.
Well, the big answer, for blogs of a progressive nature, is to completely
displace the corporate press and create a truly progressive press, that probably
believes in all
those things that Joe Klein says we believe in--except that you don't have
to be some "radical" to believe in these things. You just have to be an ordinary
American who finds that this system just doesn't work very well for you. You
could be without healthcare or decent work or afford the training that would get
you the decent work if those jobs aren't off shored anyway, but you're certainly
not living like Tom Friedman or Joe Klein. That's most of us.
If I had money, say a million bucks, then I
would hire reporters for about four beats. Essentially every city and county
council meeting would be covered. Lots of arts stuff, even book reviews. Without
a dime to my name, pretty much my current state, then you have the site that you
have in front of you. Generally, I try to write about things that I'm passionate
about that the corporate media outlets don't write about. Lately, that's been
atheism and the vote theft issue. Wash, rinse and repeat. The Internet should be
a place to get the things that you need that the corporate media isn't giving
you. Yes Craigslist has the infrastructure already in place to build that
network but he doesn't have the money. (If you're worried about the corrupting
influence of 500 million put it in writing what limits--say, no more than 2
million a year for personal use--you think a decent man should live under. It's
called contract law....)This is why some of us wish he would take those google
ads or create some other revenue stream.
Speaking of the vote theft issue, these
convictions probably confirm what I have long thought: that the Ohio election
not only was stolen, but that a fair recount was never heard in a county where
there were probably enough votes to put Kerry over. Thanks for not fighting for
me John. I guess I'm not worth it. Seems to be going around.
So, for you future historians out there,
here's the big story: The reason the Earth may be headed for an unstoppable
Venus like global warming is that the Republican president stole not just one
but two national elections. I just hope there are future historians O
journalists of Dune...Here's more
from those
original stories:
First criminal convictions from
Ohio's stolen 2004 election confirm recount was rigged
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
January 27, 2007
The first felony convictions of two Cleveland poll workers stemming from Ohio's
stolen 2004 election confirm that the official recount in that contested vote
was, in the words of county prosecutors, "rigged."� The question now is whether
further prosecutions will reach higher up in the ranks of officials who may have
been involved in illegalities�throughout the rest of the state.�
The convictions have come down in Cuyahoga County, where Democratic candidates
traditionally run up huge majorities.� Suspicious vote counts and other
irregularities cut deeply into John Kerry's margins in 2004.� Official vote
counts gave the state---and thus the presidency---to George W. Bush by about
118,000 votes out of 5.5 million counted.��
A statewide recount, paid for by the Green and Libertarian Parties, was marred
in 87 of the state's 88 counties by the types of illegalities that led to this
week's convictions. Only in Coshocton County was a full, manual recount
performed.�
Throughout the rest of the state, under the direction of Republican Secretary of
State J. Kenneth Blackwell, mandatory random sampling was not done, as
prescribed by law.� Instead, poll workers illegally chose sample precincts for
recounting where they knew there would be no problems, and then routinely
recounted the rest of the ballots by machine, rendering the recount meaningless.
Related:Brad Friedman on the new voter rights
bill. Not sure where I stand on this but they should try to pass the
strongest bill they can. The republicans only have to corrupt one state in a
close presidential election. It was Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. Who knows
what state it will be in 2008.
Best commentary on the House vote:
Wise old Max Sawicky
who I think is near death.
Now would be a good time for me
to score some points by attacking Nancy Pelosi from the left for an inadequate
anti-war resolution, but I don't want to.
Markos and
David Sirota are right. This is the best we're
going to get at the moment. There is simply more work to do at the grass roots,
and at the task of browbeating mainstream media If David Obey is too conservaive
for you, you might as well move to Sweden.
I certainly don't fault the
House Progressive Caucus for trying to throw sand in the gears. That's their
job. They are better situated to judge when it's time to hold or fold.
We've got wobbly liberals who
want the U.S. out but, for good reasons, go queasy over what happens to those we
leave behind. And there are Red State types who elected centrist Democrats who
may be vulnerable to the support the troops by supporting the mission idea.
We've also got wobbly
Democratic politicians running for president who are fuzzy on Iran and on the
manner in which they would end the Iraq engagement. They need to be harrassed as
well.
Arithmetical majorities in
polls are not enough. To beat the champ, you have to knock him out. This is why
I rant about flaky anti-war arguments. To get stronger mobilization, you need a
better story.
My own thoughts on this: if its the fall
2008 and we're still in the war and gas prices have risen with no penalty on the
horizon woe unto the dems. Yes, it would be a great opportunity for a
progressive Third Party if there was one.
March 23
Two really interesting blogs that I should
be permalinking soon. Muzzlewatch and
the Consumerist.
I think this is the deal Peduto cut: If he
gets out of the race, then he gets to become City Council President after
Shields, presumably,
wins the Controller's seat. Furthermore, he would get to solidify his power,
gather chits among the committeemen and watch what looks to be a disastrous
Ravenstahl mayoral term come to an end within a year. I don't think that was a
principled deal to take and I can't prove it. That's just the way it looks. Its
just a theory. I guess we'll know if Peduto becomes the next City Council
Chairman. Related: Couldn't you have taken the same possible deal a week before
the primary and not rewarded the Lying King for ducking out on the black
community and going to Hooters? Arrrrrrghhhh...and I mean that. (It also would
have been nice to see how strong the netroots have become in helping a
candidate. I guess we won't know for awhile...We
certainly would have fought for you Bill even if you weren't willing to
fight for yourself. )My other theory is that he just plain ran out of money and
that reflects better on him! I saw that happen in the Pennacchio. Somebody
canceled his Hollywood meeting. Of course, I think you have to take pac money
from labor and environmental groups. You should be doing their work
anyway...would like to know the final state of Peduto's finances.
Note to
Mullah Rob:
I don't give a fuck if you don't think my blog is interesting. I began my
writing career because I needed to do it. I vent therefore I am. Sometimes I've
made good money doing it. Sometimes not. I only left that comment because I know
how lonely it feels when people don't respond to your fiction. I'd prefer
negative hostility rather than nothing. But don't worry. Jesus loves you in the
end. In fact, I don't know
why you don't hurry up
and die and meet him faster! That would certainly end your incessant whining
about your depression that Jesus with his
infinite power can't cure
or your diabetes (ditto), but the fantabulous afterlife that Jesus has promised
that's a fucking certainty, I mean right? What a heavyweight. And he's listened
to or read Feynman's lectures. Oh I'm so fucking impressed. He's so smart. It's
all written in the book of life don't you know...Feh, indeed. But of course you
won't be reading this anyway darn the luck...
Its another day and we need another
cool Black Panther party poster! (Hint: You could do a remix here and and change
that to Iraq, Iran, France, etc...)
March 22
I'm shocked by Peduto's decision.
"Negative" means swiftboating or impeachment over blowjobs, not pointing out
that your opponent is an incompetent inexperienced liar. This ain't beanbag. I
don't blame the Post Gazette. Peduto should have stayed in until the final bell.
He either took a deal or there were incriminating pictures...did he run out of
money? Can't figure this one out...
Everytime that I try to reach your website via some of the computer labs at
school, the system aborts.
Is there a possibility that you have either been killed by an intelligence
agency or your website has been filtered by a school filter?
Please let me know.
My answer was this and I also gave her some
secret on the QT advice as to why some people buy PCs. Laura is in mourning over
her lost Apple laptop...
I'm still alive. But yes its probably true.
I'm too dangerous for college kids. I would like to know more about your
university's filtering policy though. I wonder whether its the atheism or the
porn? I've always wanted to be dangerous though and, no fooling, I really do
discuss a lot of dangerous ideas on the site. I guess this proves it. Just call
me Shropshire. Phil Shropshire. Shaken not stirred.
I guess I could update my backup site Mirror Universe, which they probably
haven't banned yet...to the batcave!
Sincerely,
Name's Shropshire. Philip Shropshire.
www.threeriversonline.com and later tonight:
http://mirroruniverse.blogspot.com/
PS: By the way, buy a decent used desktop PC that has at least 1 gig of ram and
1.5 ghz chip. You can get one of those for about 300 bucks at the Goodwill
computer shop in southside. That's one of the sad secrets of us nerdy
bespectacled PC buyers: sometimes you don't have an extra grand to buy a decent
Apple laptop...
First from an incisive piece called "God's
Dupes" from Sam Harris that I think hits a number of points. I guess the
premise is that the relatively sensible
Mullah Rob (Can't let this one go: Could you name those angry atheists?
Could it be that the overwhelming number of studies--there's more than one--show
no positive correlation or perhaps these unnamed angry atheists understand the
placebo effect?) gives cover to
Catholic Jihadists like
Funky Dung. So they must all be...destroyed. Okay he didn't say that last
part. He has said that people who take the Old Testament God at his angry
off oft times malicious word should be taken as seriously as,
say, palmists and astrologers. Sounds good to me.
Here's a snippet:
PETE STARK, a California
Democrat, appears to be the first congressman in U.S. history to acknowledge
that he doesn't believe in God. In a country in which 83% of the population
thinks that the Bible is the literal or "inspired" word of the creator of the
universe, this took political courage.
Of course, one can imagine that Cicero's handlers in the 1st century BC lost
some sleep when he likened the traditional accounts of the Greco-Roman gods to
the "dreams of madmen" and to the "insane mythology of Egypt."
Mythology is where all gods go to die, and it seems that Stark has secured a
place in American history simply by admitting that a fresh grave should be dug
for the God of Abraham the jealous, genocidal, priggish and self-contradictory
tyrant of the Bible and the Koran. Stark is the first of our leaders to display
a level of intellectual honesty befitting a consul of ancient Rome. Bravo.
Oh here's the whole thing. Its that good.
The truth is, there is not a person on Earth
who has a good reason to believe that Jesus rose from the dead or that Muhammad
spoke to the angel Gabriel in a cave. And yet billions of people claim to be
certain about such things. As a result, Iron Age ideas about everything high and
low sex, cosmology, gender equality, immortal souls, the end of the world, the
validity of prophecy, etc. continue to divide our world and subvert our
national discourse. Many of these ideas, by their very nature, hobble science,
inflame human conflict and squander scarce resources.
Of course, no religion is monolithic. Within every faith one can see people
arranged along a spectrum of belief. Picture concentric circles of diminishing
reasonableness: At the center, one finds the truest of true believers the
Muslim jihadis, for instance, who not only support suicidal terrorism but who
are the first to turn themselves into bombs; or the Dominionist Christians, who
openly call for homosexuals and blasphemers to be put to death.
Outside this sphere of maniacs, one finds millions more who share their views
but lack their zeal. Beyond them, one encounters pious multitudes who respect
the beliefs of their more deranged brethren but who disagree with them on small
points of doctrine of course the world is going to end in glory and Jesus will
appear in the sky like a superhero, but we can't be sure it will happen in our
lifetime.
Out further still, one meets religious moderates and liberals of diverse hues
people who remain supportive of the basic scheme that has balkanized our world
into Christians, Muslims and Jews, but who are less willing to profess certainty
about any article of faith. Is Jesus really the son of God? Will we all meet our
grannies again in heaven? Moderates and liberals are none too sure.
Those on this spectrum view the people further toward the center as too rigid,
dogmatic and hostile to doubt, and they generally view those outside as
corrupted by sin, weak-willed or unchurched.
The problem is that wherever one stands on this continuum, one inadvertently
shelters those who are more fanatical than oneself from criticism. Ordinary
fundamentalist Christians, by maintaining that the Bible is the perfect word of
God, inadvertently support the Dominionists men and women who, by the
millions, are quietly working to turn our country into a totalitarian theocracy
reminiscent of John Calvin's Geneva. Christian moderates, by their lingering
attachment to the unique divinity of Jesus, protect the faith of fundamentalists
from public scorn. Christian liberals who aren't sure what they believe but
just love the experience of going to church occasionally deny the moderates a
proper collision with scientific rationality. And in this way centuries have
come and gone without an honest word being spoken about God in our society.
People of all faiths and none regularly change their lives for the better,
for good and bad reasons. And yet such transformations are regularly put forward
as evidence in support of a specific religious creed. President Bush has cited
his own sobriety as suggestive of the divinity of Jesus. No doubt Christians do
get sober from time to time but Hindus (polytheists) and atheists do as well.
How, therefore, can any thinking person imagine that his experience of sobriety
lends credence to the idea that a supreme being is watching over our world and
that Jesus is his son?
There is no question that many people do good things in the name of their faith
but there are better reasons to help the poor, feed the hungry and defend the
weak than the belief that an Imaginary Friend wants you to do it. Compassion is
deeper than religion. As is ecstasy. It is time that we acknowledge that human
beings can be profoundly ethical and even spiritual without pretending to
know things they do not know.
Let us hope that Stark's candor inspires others in our government to admit their
doubts about God. Indeed, it is time we broke this spell en masse. Every one of
the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of
the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact
about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain from cosmology to
psychology to economics has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture.
Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly,
without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception,
set to music.
He also makes the same point at the Beyond
Belief conference here:
More Pittsburgh thoughts that touch upon
life here. I've been to the new Sav A Lot in Wilkinsburg and the new Trader
Joe's in East Liberty. I can say that the people at Trader Joe's are definitely
better looking but I do most of my shopping at Sav A Lot because I'm a
despicable dirty poor person who likes bargains. Plus, the Sav A Lot is about
500 yards away as opposed to the three miles that I have to hike to the Trader
Joe fella. I will make that hike to get their really good pound of European
chocolate. It really is a pound. About four bucks.
Pittsburgh story part two: I found myself in Shadyside and fell into that
snazzy new Apple boutique for all those computers that I can't afford. And as
someone who used to sell computers for Dell I can tell you why
Dell's fortunes have faded while Apple's have improved. Whenever you see one
of those poor Dell salesman at one of their mall kiosks ask them if you can use
the Internets. He'll probably tell you no. I could sort of understand that. You
don't necessarily want some 10 year old exploring the World of Porn on one of
your fancy Big Screens. What I would never tell you as a salesman is that I
wasn't allowed to look at the Internet, either. Think about that for a moment.
Think about all the ways you could use the Internet to sell a computer and how I
couldn't do it. For the record, we just hacked one computer and we did have
internet access, but here's the thing: We probably shouldn't have had to do that
if we were working for a reasonably intelligent computer company to begin with.
How does Apple do it? Every one of their machines has Internet access, of
course. I spent a good half hour just surfing the net and putting the machine
through its paces. So, being that the public had access to the Internets I'm
going to presume that the Apple salesmen had the same rights as well. Here's a
crazy thought: The value of computers is the Internet. One company gets it and
the other doesn't...
March 17
Another great animation from
Tom Moody. He didn't do
it but he did find it.
March 16
Here's a Watchmen like question: Who is the
real bad guy: people who mug old ladies or folks who kill a half million Iraqis?
If you really wanted to stop crime, then who would you kill first? I think
that's the premise for this comic called "Black Summer", which I heard about at
Warren Ellis' great site. (Editor's note: I used to just post those comments
here but it looks like it turns off Explorer. So instead
here's the
original link at American Samizdat.)
For the record, and for the
edification of the prying eyes of either Homeland Security and/or the secret
service, I do not support the murder of the current president of the United
States. However, I think there are people who may have come to the conclusion
that our political system is broken and that all nonviolent avenues have been
exhausted. So, I guess I'm saying I wouldn't be surprised if someone took a shot
at him. Then again, its only a comic book ha ha ha and ha.
I went back to that
Angry Arab link and found that people still weren't that thrilled with Obama,
even though there have been reports that his speech to AIPAC wasn't nearly as
subservient as others. I thought this one comment kind of captured the truth.
If you parse Obama's words carefully
you will see that his promises amount to very little, it is always that he will
try to do something, not that he will. If he supports the Palestinians in any
way, he will never get elected. If he panders to AIPAC, he might get elected.
Once he is elected he can say and do what he really wants to. I suspect that
someone who treats the Israelis and Palestinian equally could never get elected
in the first place. I strongly suspect that, with the advantages of an incumbant,
someone who treats the Israelis and Palestinian equally could get re-elected.
Related: I also think that's why he
supported Leiberman, not that Hillary or Edwards didn't if I recall...still, a
notch down for Obama. I have to admit one thing though: after seeing him speak
at that Selma thing I believe he is a more talented politician than either
Edwards or Hillary. That charisma thing matters in politics. As far as a
ticket: how about Obama/Richardson? Or Obama and a woman? I don't think Hillary
would accept the VP spot.
This is kind of old but it looks like
all
of the stories are online. I've only read the one about jetpacks. Working my
way through it...
March 12
I first saw this at the Warren Ellis site. I
believe in science fiction. Looking for good online stories? Aussie Greg Egan,
arguably the best hard science fiction writer alive, has most of his short
stories online. They're all disturbing and leave you with an itch at the back of
your mind that you just can't scratch. Disturbing. Really. Try "Oceanic"
here. Some people think he's a horror writer in drag. This is why. And for
Mullah Rob: "Oracle".
Features an alt reality with fictionalized cameos by Alan Turing and C S Lewis,
where Lewis has to choose between eternal life that he controls or death and an
opportunity to meet with his God. Guess which choice he makes...Also: nice Cory
Doctorow story here.
0wnz0red.
I'm also going to listen to the podcast of "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth".
For your information, in case you don't know this, Cory Doctorow is a
copyleftist. He thinks you probably shouldn't go to jail because you've
downloaded an MP3 or uploaded a copyrighted video. Lots of people say that but
they don't put most of their work online for free. (And yes: my two science
fiction efforts are online here
and here.)
Related: Tom Moody's take on the most important science
fiction novels of the last 50 years. His list here. I've always kind of wished
Woody Allen would adapt "The Space Merchants". Or any science fiction for that
matter...I've read all of those writers but I tend to focus on short fiction and
not novels. So, I'm not well read enough here. "Watchmen" is an inspired choice.
A.A. Attanasio - The Last Legends of Earth, Radix
Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons - Watchmen
Brian Aldiss - Non-Stop, Hothouse
Philip K. Dick - Ubik, Martian Time Slip
J.G. Ballard - The Crystal World, High Rise
Pohl & Kornbluth - The Space Merchants, Wolfbane
Bruce Sterling - Schismatrix Plus, Heavy Weather
The Strugatskys - Roadside Picnic
Stanislaw Lem - Solaris
Greg Egan - Quarantine
Greg Bear - Blood Music
Octavia Butler - Earthseed novels
Michael Swanwick - The Iron Dragon's Daughter
Doris Piserchia - Doomtime
John Brunner - The Shockwave Rider
March 11
One of the things that always angered me
about some of these right wing pundits--mostly the now
thankfully retired from punditry USS Clueless guy--is that we're just not
smart enough to move beyond fossil fuels. We need to know our limitations. Oh
sure, you can now carry more memory on your keychain that used to fill up your
desktop hard drives but that fossil fuel thing...better to kill a half million
Iraqis than even Think about moving away from the old energy infrastructures.
And yes I'm an operative for Big Oil. (Or at least I always thought he was. His
handler was probably Glenn Reynolds. Note to self: hack into Glenn's puter and
get the NOC list...)
The
electric-car quandry is almost over. Until now, you could get either a low-speed
"neighborhood" vehicle that couldn't break the 40 mph barrier, or an electric
supercar like the Tesla Roadster that sells for $90,000. But Ontario,
California--based Phoenix Motorcars is about to unveil a $45,000 truck and an
SUV that will go from zero to 60 in 10 seconds, travel 200 to 250 miles, and
keep up with highway traffic. At the heart of the Phoenix is a new variant of
the lithium-ion battery, made by Altair Nanotechnologies. It replaces the carbon
anodes of old with nanosized lithium-titanate particles, which don't overheat
and allow the car to recharge in about 15 minutes using a special charger, or in
six to seven hours using a wall socket. The first two production runs--500 this
year, 6,000 in 2008--will be sold to fleet owners to work out the final kinks
before the Phoenix is offered up to the general public. "What we're saying,"
says Phoenix CEO Dan Elliott, "is you can have your cake and eat it too."
I might note that
Mr. Clueless wrote his precious theories before we realized that Wind is a
winner. Who knows what we could have done to move away from fossil fuels had
there simply been the political will and intelligence to do it. I also hope the
makers at Phoenix and Tesla
have watched "Tucker:
A Man and his Dream" very very carefully. Hold that tiger...
A
related miracle tech
that Mr. Clueless says
can never happen from MIT's Technology Review. There
are claims that it can't be done but the batteries either work in cars or they
don't...
March 10
Mac Booker is definitely the most
interesting writer at Metroblogging,
although Laura is still the cutest. (Of course, if you're still creating content
for free I can't call either one of you the "smartest"...) He actually seems to
know things. He
also did a nice review of the PG blogs. I do have to disagree with
Macbooker's assessment of "My Homewood" that a Family Dollar being built isn't
much news. If you live in a poor community, hey, that's news. Take it from me I
live in Wilkinsburg. When I first moved here I pretty much had to walk a mile
and a half to buy fresh milk and eggs. Now that there's at least a drive in
Giant Eagle on Penn Avenue near the McDonalds and the Save a Lot has opened its
a pretty big deal. You can actually walk to a store and buy fresh food. If you
live in Homewood, well, you can pretty much walk to Wilkinsburg and/or East
Liberty. That's a big thing if you're poor and don't have a car. I'm also
guessing that the Mac Booker hasn't had too many bullets flying through his
window. I'm not saying that its war reporting but on that guy's salary he could
live in a lot nicer places than Homewood. Would be nice if he updated it more.
Does he have stronger opinions and can he express them on his blog? See next
post for answer...
Here's my own
review of those PG blogs here: They can't fuckin' swear. Actually, they might be
able to but the thing is can they do it without looking over their backs and
being tossed out the door the next day? Can any of those music blogs play a
Youtube vid without clearing it with legal? Out here in the mostly independent
burgosphere Richard Scaife can blow me. Don't really care if he doesn't like my
work. The same for whoever edits the PG, especially if its
that adorable
Samantha Bennett. I can say all kinds of things out here and often do and
don't really have to worry about being fired for saying them. While my annual
income hovered around $5000 last year--I can live on twigs and cable, which
isn't that hard when you don't have any pesky "family" bothering you with their
"demands" regarding food drink habitation and whatnot-- I have much more power
and much more say so over my content than any PG writer. I won't even go into
the right wing theocratic sweatshop that is the Tribune Review.
Welp, all done. I'll be back fuckin'
tomorrow too barring death. I'll stop writing when you pry my ergonomic keyboard
from my cold dead hands. Oh, what's that, the bosses in Toledo don't like my
strident style...well they can blow me too. What would you rather have: power or
money? (Trick question: I'm actually striving for both...) One more thing: I was
kind of hoping that maybe contract negotiations would have stalled and the
writers of the PG took a shot at creating and owning their own paper, because if
it worked a newspaper owned by its creators would be a great force of good in
this world.
Nice Peduto ad here. It strikes up the adult
vs. kid theme quite nicely. Note to anyone canvassing for the Peduto campaign:
It would probably be cheaper to burn these on a cd and hand deliver them door to
door than pay to put this on the teevee. It is, afterall, the future. Update:
nevermind.
March 7
Funny toon by Stephanie:
The
Angry Arab says Hillary will trot out this pic of Obama speaking with Edward
Said, who's a bad person because he thinks Palestinians are people. Bu there
wouldn't necessarily be an overt rebuke. The poison would look
more like this.
By the way, Said said things like this
(from Wikipedia, although with a second's worth of googling you could probably
find several Democracy Now Interviews):
In August 2003, in an article published online in
Counterpunch, Said summarizes his position on the contemporary rights of
Palestinians vis-ΰ-vis the historical experience of the Jewish people:
I have spent a great deal of
my life during the past 35 years advocating the rights of the Palestinian
people to national self-determination, but I have always tried to do that
with full attention paid to the reality of the Jewish people and what they
suffered by way of persecution and genocide. The paramount thing is that the
struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane
goal, that is, co-existence, and not further suppression and denial.[41]
Pris
has a great videoblog, even
though I can't really afford all that fancy organic food.
March 6th
My fave fantasy
serious film experience got a modest box office over the weekend. Note to self:
move this poster to the Red Light District where it belongs. Related: Multi
Medium guy is
spreading a false and malicious rumor that this proposed new Burger King
movie (probably being produced by the same people who want to turn the Geico
cavemen ads into a sitcom...oh, that will do well...)will be using a V for
Vendetta style advertising campaign. Or as the ad campaign will say: The Burger
King Shouldn't Be Afraid of His People, The People Should be Afraid of the
Burger King.
Speaking of thinly disguised pornography, I
see that the county--aided, probably, by Dan "The Boss" Onorato and the Rendell
machine, so sez
Thomas at Mark Rauterkaus--committeemen endorsed Luke Ravenstahl, in case
you're wondering how a mediocre man like Bush became the President (its because
dumb guys are less threatening to the status quo...) over the grown up Bill
Peduto for the mayor. Laura of Ideas Bucket
offers her depressing
take. And she even
has a video, with some old skool alice cooper as the soundtrack. Maria is
not full of sunshine, either.
I still think Peduto has a great shot at
winning. My take from the last election is that Lamb and Peduto split the anti
establishment vote (I'm terrified that Obama and Edwards will do the same thing
at the national level and hand the thing to Hillary...) and handed it to O
Conner. Right now, it's just Peduto versus the popular kid. I wish Peduto well.
I just hope that he's well funded for these final 10 weeks. And
Mark you're wrong: May 15th really is it, unless the Arnold comes into
Pittsburgh with a 10 million dollar independent run.
March 5
Well well well,
looks like
MTV is losing money. Turns out lame reality shows not as interesting as
breaking a band like the Sugarcubes or U2. Really. I never would have guessed
that. That means that BET on J probably isn't doing that well either. Roll over
Beethoven and somebody tell
Reginald Hudlin the news.
The velocity of change has left
MTV occasionally looking as if were being programmed by an 83-year-old namely
Sumner M. Redstone, the chairman of Viacom, which owns MTV. The network, itself
a stately 25 years old, has suffered a decline in ratings and cultural cachet.
Last week, MTV Networks, an umbrella which includes MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and
Nickelodeon, laid off 250 employees, including some executives. The idea was to
trim bodies in the television ranks and ramp up hiring on the Internet side of
the business, investing the savings to make sure that its various channels don"t
end up like the dad in the basement at the teen party.
As a brand, MTV has been beyond durable, managing to reinvent itself
continuously and in doing so presenting a fast-moving target that left many
would-be rivals in its wake. Shows like MTV's Real World deserve much of the
credit, or blame, for demonstrating that reality can make for compelling
viewing.
March 2
Even though I criticize the dems I still
think they're the only game in town. I'll say this again: You give me 35 million
then I'll give you a viable third party movement, or I'll show you a way to
throw a lot of races to the Republicans. It's
the winner take all system and people who win with the winner take all
system aren't in a hurry to change the winner take all system. I was having a
little fun with
one of my Amsam comrades. Here's the
original toon.
I'm
sure he'll take it well or he'll tell me to stick it where the sun don't
shine. I wouldn't have it any other way.
I'm adding several local Pittsburgh blogs.
One is the The People's
Republic of Pittsburgh and the other is
Metroblogging Pittsburgh, whose premise of making some other guy rich who
won't share any of his revenue with you seems like a bad idea. You could just as
easily start something called Three Rivers Online Metroblogging and you could
share in the google ad revenues, instead of giving it to some "guy". But some of
the writing is pretty good.
Here's the latest from people who have gone
through the ACORN experience:
acorn blows
by nonya Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 at 8:37 PM Yeah, I just washed out of
training with ACORN. There were three of us, two with masters degrees, and two
fluent spanish speakers. All three of us were gone within three days.
We read an article by Cesar Chavez about his work organizing. Two things that
stood out to me were 1) the UFW offered tangible rewards for dues paying
members, such as subsidized gasoline, auto repair, credit union, cheap
groceries, and other benefits. 2) The issues were decided primarily by the
workers themselves.
At ACORN, there are no benefits. They take your money, and they make you
protests, and the only benefit is that a law might be passed after years of
struggle. No one joins a union, and pays $120 dues, just to win political
victories. They do it for very specific, personal benefits, like keeping their
electricity on, getting discounts.
But the issues that they are fighting for may or may not be in everyone's self
interest. For example, the head leadership decided to have paid sick days as the
primary goal. But really, each individual has their own personal reasons for
joining a group, like getting the crack heads out of their ally, having their
street snow plowed, or stopping people from doing doughnuts on the street. I am
not sure that the ACORN organizers are really listening to their constituents.
Rather, it seems like they are trying to get money and warm bodies to support
their pre-determined leftist causes, (like stopping Wal-Mart, for example).
Because the ACORN workers, especially the managers, are paid so little, you end
up with this children's army of workers. At the typical ACORN office, everyone
is stressed, no one is smiling, the office is in disarray. Their database is out
of date, so you call the same deceased person five times without anyone taking
him off the list. They don't give a damn about their workers; I never got
fifteen minute breaks, nor did I get lunch breaks. You work 55 hour weeks, no
overtime.
Truly, the only people who work work for ACORN are too inexperienced, too
unprofessional, or too sketchy, or too radical to get a job anywhere else.
Instead of expanding their organization, they should shrink it, pay their
workers more, offer their members tangible benefits, and otherwise get their act
together.
Yep. Sounds about right.
Keep fighting the Power Maryellen if she's even still there...
Not sure what this is about but
it sure looks interesting. .
Speaking
of the evil Bush administration: This is yet
It is a good day to remind you to buy
,
Palast lays out the case for the future theft of the presidency, along with lots
of other Executive malfeasance. I chatted with him about the role of the Justice
Department in this scheme, and what it means for the viability of our
democracy.
Horrible. This is the auto insurance standard where I'm forced to buy coverage but the insurance industry doesn't have to lower rates or offer competitive pricing. One of the reasons I don't owe a car now is that I can't afford the insurance...the solution involves a not for profit insurance company , not necessarily run by the government but not the same old lobbyist suspects who Hillary thinks are just "people". I say it again. Horrible. I can't wait for the day I can't afford my 200 dollar a week health care premium and I'm thrown in jail...