Military Families vs. the War

Figure this article can't be too good for the war party. Of course, the most intelligent response comes from one Christine Dooley:

Christine Dooley, who's 22 and living in Murrysville, Pa., with an infant daughter, is mourning the loss of her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Micheal Dooley, 23, killed in June. "The fact that I lost Micheal does not change my feelings about what we needed to do over there at all," Dooley says via e-mail. "Many Americans forget that we were attacked on 9/11. . . . We need to kick some butt and clean up!"

As these types of articles continue to creep out, lots of thoughts run through my mind. By now I've managed to suppress most of the heavy thinking about the waste of human lives - about what all these now-dead kids could have achieved in a full lifetime - another 60 years or so. So now I just think How? How did it take these families so long to figure it out? How long will it take the others? Does it really take the death of a loved one - a spouse, a child - to allow yourself the breathing room to re-evaluate your long-held positions on the glories of war? And some are still not convinced....interesting...

Trust Me, I'm American

Today's Express (Cars, p. 10) has a false statement posing as a subtitle for one of its articles. The article was written by John Porretto of the AP. Man, the AP just continues to lose credibility. And I don't expect credibility from the Post. It's even more ironic when you consider the title of the article - Trust Me, I'm American. The subtitle says:

U.S.-made vehicles top reliability ratings in consumer survey

I have to say, as a big American-made-car-hater, this came as a bit of a shock to me. So, I start reading and encounter this:

For the first time in 25 years, U.S. carmakers can say they make more reliable cars than their competitors in Europe. Asian manufacturers still hold top bragging rights, however.

OK - so the subtitle was a lie. The subtitle said that U.S.-made vehicles topped the reliability ratings, and they did not.

Later on in the article, much later on, we get what we should have gotten up front:

The magazine said vehicles from Acura, Honda, Infiniti, Lexus, Mazda, and Toyota have been the most reliable over the past five years.

Oh! All those guys are American companies, right?! Cool. Gotta go get me a Ford, I mean a Toyota, built in the heartland of America!

Kerry to Meet With Dean Today in DC

Interesting.....I've said before that Dean needs to be in this race to suppress the Nader effect. It seems Dems love to quote the Kerry vs. Bush polls instead of the Kerry vs. Bush vs. Nader polls, but that doesn't mean that Dems are interested in reality. Are we looking at a Dean VP run?

Kerry Voted Against Body Armour

I don't want to say I told you so, but I told you so.

UPDATE: Ouch. They're at it again. Look for Kerry to concede the race within the month.

CREEP - Committe To Re-Elect The President

From Atrios, Howard Stern takes Bush a-part! Oh my gosh...I can't believe the Bush Administration made an enemy of Howard Stern....call off the dogs! Ouch! This stuff is brutal! Broo-tuhl.

The Brookings Institution: Yet Another Right-Wing Think Tank

I thought Brookings was supposed to be slightly left of center, but then their guy Ken Pollack came out in a big way for the illegal invasion of Iraq. Now, a couple more of their guys have written a book which states, inexplicably, that George W. Bush is not, in fact, anyone's puppet. I honestly don't even know what to say. All of the insider accounts of the Administration - most recently Paul O'Neill's account - paint Bush exactly the way he seems to be - dumb, uninterested, lazy, incapable, an ordinary buffoon, fully capable of being convinced of any absurdity. I don't get it. So much for Brookings...

Cadavers Worth Up To $220,000!

That is just no joke, man. I thought you could only get 15 or 20 grand, which was still a lot, I thought, but $220,000! That's a little scary...seems like that's enough motive to drive would-be robbers to go one step further. All would depend on how strict the buyers were about paperwork...

American Computer Programmers Are NOT Expendable

Or...maybe they are...

Chinese Women Create Secret Script

Pretty wild stuff.

I always wonder how brave and/or imaginative I would be under incredibly oppressive conditions...

US Stands Up For Threats To Democracy

Hey - I didn't say it. He did:

Boucher singled out Venezuela as an example of how Washington has supported democracy in the region. "We've stood up for threats to democracy in Venezuela, whatever side they might be coming from," he said.

Suicidal Tendencies

Started amassing some 'workout' music for the home and ran across some very old-school stuff that is just outrageous intense. I used to listen to Suicidal Tendencies when I was a little G, back in the 80's. No idea how I heard about them, but damn - about fifteen years later and this stuff is still slammin. Apparently the group is still going strong - new albums, tours, etc.



Dont' know if this music is for everyone, but I'll give a little pointer to those who have no idea where to start. I only owned one record and am really only familiar with the songs on it, and nothing else, but at least a few of these tracks are tight. Lights... Camera... Revolution has a track called 'Alone' which, to me, exemplifies Suicidal.

It seems these guys have a fairly loyal following and their longevity and philosophies have helped to cultivate the Suicidal Lifestyle, whatever, exactly, that is. I'm just impressed, though. Listen to this one track, Alone, and it makes everything else I've been listening to seem like a Kenny Rogers love ballad. I've never seen a live show, but I imagine it might be scary...which is a good thing...

Greyhound Welfare

Don't worry, Republicans - it's not another big government program - not that Mr. Bush would have any problems with that. It's a charity that takes care of greyhound dogs once their usefulness on the track has expired.

Check it out.

Flaming Sydney

I'd always heard that Sydney was very 'gay friendly' - whatever that means - but this year's Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival seems to support the theory.

And, is it just me, or do gay people really know how to party?

The Sydney Morning Herald does some good coverage of the events.

Haiti Situation Familiar to Conspiracy Theorists

Think you know the basics of what's going on in Haiti? What about Venezuela?

Well, the reason I ask is because sometimes, even with the best intentions some of us have of getting both sides of a story, both sides don't always seem to be readily available. Either that, or we're just too lazy or trusting to ask the question why?

In Greg Palast's book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Palast details the one-sided US coverage of the US-led Venezuela coup attempt. It's really unbelievable stuff, but what was so shocking to me was that I had no idea that there was even another side of the story. I remembered hearing every few weeks or so a short clip on CNN about protests against the evil dictator Hugo Chavez, the democratically-elected President of Venezuela, but that was about it. I never even thought to ask 'why?'. Why were people protesting? After that, the questions can really flow. Who, exactly, was protesting? Of course, CNN never told us about the implications of Chavez's unfavorable actions towards his country's oil industry - at least some part of which is managed by US-owned companies. If you haven't figured it out yet, oil reserves is something that America's powerful, oily elite care a whole lot about.

Read this story in his book. Watch the BBC video clip. Just do something to educate yourself. I'm guessing you'll be devastated, like I was, at how ignorant you were about the situation in Venezuela.

This documentary film on the 2002 coup attempt seems like it'll probably be interesting, too.

Or listen to this audio feed. Wow - this audio clip is...I'm over-using the word 'devastating', but how else could it be described? Talk about media consolidation. Howard Stern getting pulled off the air by Clear Channel just a couple of days after he became a Bush hater instead of a Bush supporter. Rush Limbaugh coming out to defend Stern because of his worries of censorship. A media propaganda machine drumming up support from the masses for action? Does any of this remind you of the US run-up to the Iraq War? Scary, man.

Now we have the situation in Haiti. Are you really prepared, again, to believe what your government is telling you? Aristide is saying he was kidnapped in a US-led coup.

I really like the idea of The Palast Investigative Fund. No details on it yet, but I know that more investigative reporting would be a very good thing for America...

p.s. full disclosure - I should mention that Greg Palast is my personal hero. right up there with James Bovard. and i reserve the right to have as many personal heros as i like.

Let Them Play

If we allow a young guy - a kid - to get his ass shot off in Iraq then shouldn't we allow that kid to play football in the NFL? I think so. People claiming to worry about Maurice Clarett's vulnerability on the football field because of his tender age should do a little more worrying about our kids in uniforms getting blowed up by guys with guns and grenades. Now, as expected, others are following in Clarette's footsteps. Good for them.

The Reason We Invaded Iraq

To guarantee re-election, stupid! Rove must be laughing at us all. Would we invade another country just to get re-elected? Well, why not? A massively flagging economy, burgeoning deficits, rampant unemployment, Bush was basically guaranteed to get booted from office without another war or another major attack on US soil. The US has never dumped a 'wartime president', so why would we start now?

I've probably pointed this out before, but Justin Raimondo over at AntiWar.com wrote my favorite article on why we invaded Iraq. He doesn't think oil had anything to do with it - on that count I think he's wrong - but the other stuff is pretty enlightening.

This is Patriotism

Doing what is good for your home community is patriotic, doing what is good for a community you may only visit once in your life, then, is certainly patriotic.

Beyoncé Knowles' bandmembers chased down a suspected carjacker after he assaulted a 91-year-old driver in a Florida parking lot.

I'm so tired of hearing stories of tired-ass bystanders. The story usually goes something like this: People were just standing around, watching, as I was:

• robbed


• beaten


• raped


• all of the above?

Mad props to these cats for lookin' out. If every punk on the street knows they are up against a citizenry that won't put up with nonsense, we could be a much better society. I don't want anyone getting shot or stabbed, but I like the idea of us all being in this together, and that means not standing around while someone else gets it handed to them.

More Domestic Terrorism, Unreported

Orcinus points out that actual domestic terrorism doesn't always get reported with the same zeal and vigor that alleged pseudo-wannabe international cases or theoretical terrorism gets reported. This is especially true when the suspected terrorist is more than likely a white, fundamentalist Christian - an Ashcroft clone. Don't want to offend the base!

Among the cases that Orcinus points out is that of the recent breakup of an actual WMD plot in Texas. Yes, actual WMD plot with actual WMD. But it wasn't a big deal! But it's not Saddam!! But...but...what do I say Rush?!

You talkin' to me?

Heard about this weird 24-hour Art/Music/Film event/exhibition thing going on this past Saturday night. This special event, titled 24 Hour Access: 24 Hour Psycho, was part of the Douglas Gordon exhibition at Smithsonian's Hirshorn Museum.

What to say? It was very cool, semi-bizarre, and just generally very entertaining. The museum itself seems like it could make almost any piece of art seem cool. Massive, open spaces - rounded outer walls. I've never seen so many cool kids in my life. Seriously. Take every 'cool kid' from every DC-area college (and high school) and put them in 'cool clothes' and give them a place to come hang out and 'look cool' - this was the place. Oddly, I thought it'd be a more pretentious atmosphere, but I didn't feel that at all. How many people were there? During my two and a half hours - about 1:05 am to 3:45 am - 450 people dwindling to 250. Just a guess. It's a big space with at least three floors.

What else? There was this Andy Warhol-esque 'wall of tv sets' (about 60 tvs?) that had all this really cool imagery synchronously flashing up on it in the outline of the U.S. flag. Very, very cool-looking.

I'd have to say the best exhibit was the Robert De Niro Taxi Driver Movie 'thing' (fd: I've never seen the movie.). Two big movie-theatre-sized screens sit opposed to one another about 20 meters apart. You can stand anywhere in the room, between the two big screens. A three-minute clip of De Niro's scene in his apartment, standing in front of the mirror practicing pulling his gun on his unwitting adversary, is playing in a loop. Actually, both screens are looping the same video clip, with about a seven-second delay between the two. De Nero's now-famous line:

You talking to me? You talkin'-na me?

Of course, with the short delay between movie screens, it looks/sounds like the De Nero on one screen is having a little mano-a-mano chat with the De Nero on the other screen. Thus, you have created what is sure to be common around DC social settings for the next month or two, at least - the you talkin' ta me? introduction. Think of it as the current incarnation of the Whazzzuuuuuuuuhhhhhh Budweiser introduction of a couple years ago.

Last, but not at all least, I need to talk about the best band I've heard in at least six months. As part of this special event shindig, there were bands and DJs present. As I was finishing the exhibit - one loop around an entire floor of the museum - I heard some band playing. But I could tell they weren't just playing - they sounded good. I could tell it was live music - and it was emanating from 'down there somewhere'. Apparently the basement is where the bands and DJs were doing their thing. I eventually made my way downstairs and realized I'd just missed the band and caught some DJs holding it down fairly well - I'm guessing they might have been Yellow Fever (couldn't find a link) - given that it seemed like a couple of Asian-looking DJ dudes who were taking turns spinning records. Then 'the band' comes back on. At this point, I'm not positive if this band is the same one that was playing before the DJs, but whoever they were, they proceeded to wreck sh*t. Unbelievable.

I think the name of the band was Gully Jimson (no links), and you couldn't really hear the vocals b/c the sound in the box-like basement floor of the museum was semi-deafening, but damn did they rock it. I heard something about 'they rarely play together', and 'the older dude taught the other dudes how to play guitar', and 'the one dude is something-or-other at Catholic University of America', and one dude is the owner of Signal 66. I'm not even sure what genre I'd call it - George Thorogood meets Buddy Holly? Guitar action was nice - I'd compare it to the full and energetic sound produced by the new Aussies on the scene - Jet - with their single Are You Gonna Be My Girl.

All in all, an interesting exhibit, an interesting night.

SmarTrip vs. Octopus

I've just purchased my first SmarTrip card for the DC Metro. I'm psyched. Never lived anywhere long enough to justify semi-permanent travel paraphenalia!

I thought of the Octopus card which I saw being used in Hong Kong. I got the impression that Hong Kong was, like, so advanced, and stuff, or something, just because they were an Asian country and I saw evidence of a smart-card-type system. So, SmarTrip is a bit of a reality check for me - or was, until I read what the Octopus card is really all about. I guess it can be and is used for anything and everything in HK. Nice.

p.s. Mad props to Wikipedia. Been seeing a lot of it lately. It's like the Google of definitions.