Japan's Royal Family

This WaPost article is kind of bizarre. Entitled 'Tradition Afflicts a Modern Princess', it describes Princess Masako's struggle with living the rigid Japanese royal lifestyle - and, specifically, her struggle to fulfill her 'foremost imperial duty' - that of bearing a male heir to the throne. Last time I checked, it was the male, alone, who was responsible for determining the sex of the baby. (Am I mistaken? Is this urban myth?) Yet, the 1,623 words in this article say nothing of that fact - only that Princess Masako is under pressure from the courtiers to bear a male heir.

It all just seems a little bizarre to me - as if we've been transported back into the 1600's when men really did believe it was the woman, alone, who determined the sex of the child. Bizzarro, man...

Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bush Admin's Legacy of Fear

One line from the movie says something to the effect when people are afraid, you can make them do anything. It is stated by a U.S. Congressman who is a psychiatrist by training. This phenomenon of governming by fear has been recognized by many astute eyes for quite some time, but without Fahrenheit we can be pretty sure that the mainstream public would not ever pick up on it - because the mainstream press is gullible and is really only a mouthpiece for the government, as evidenced by a recent FAIR report. Only recently have any media begun to question Ashcroft's use of terror warnings as possibly being politically-motivated.

Moore's contention is that Bush and his people want you to be afraid - very afraid. Not because there are any real threats out there, but because they want you to get behind whatever legislation they try to pass - whatever war they wish to fight, etc. So you heard months of months of weapons of mass destruction, dirty bombs, and mushroom clouds. Why?

It wasn't because there actually was a serious threat from any of these things, it's because all the warnings helped to create a fearful mindset for everyone in the country. With everyone being so afraid of everything, they are apt to just say 'F it - do whatever you need to do to make my fears go away. If that means erasing Iraq, then so be it.' And there you have it - the Iraq war, Saddam, Osama, Zarqawi, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Islam, and whatever other 'boogeyman' Bush's crew wishes to drag off the shelf and put to good use.

Why is Homeland Security consistently underfunded by Bush? Because Homeland Security is just a joke - on the American people. The Homeland Security Department is just a farce - a media operation set up solely to support the terrorizing political tool called the Terror Alert System and to give that tool some legitimacy.

In today's Express paper there is a full pullout entitled Emergency Metro Guide. It includes the HOW-TOs of how the heck to escape all sorts of disaster that might strike you as you make your merry way to or from work - especially on the Metro system. It's classic Bush Administration scare tactics. I'm not saying that Bush and his people directly told The Washington Post to print this stuff - far from it. Bush and his people have created this incredible climate of fear and everyone - even newspaper editors - are brainwashed by it. How did they do it? Go see Fahrenheit. It describes many ways the Bushies have done this - the most prominent example being Ashcroft's manipulation of the Terror Alert Level - that candy-colored sign we talked about so long ago. Everytime the Bushies have to deal with some really negative news - BOOM! - raise the terror alert level to Orange or even Red. It's worked like a charm for a couple of years now. When you go back in time - over the past two years or so - you will be shocked at the timeliness of Aschroft's terror alerts - always falling on or near big bad news days for the Administration. Many good blogs like Atrios have been following these trends for quite some time now.

The latest piece of fearmongering by the Bushies is this latest warning put out by Bush officials - floating beer coolers. No, I'm not kidding. Check the opening graph from the Time article:

As the July 4 holiday approaches, Bush Administration officials are bombarding the nation's police, fire, emergency and corporate-security offices with another round of terrorism warnings. Although there are no plans to raise the threat level from yellow to orange, a senior Justice Department official says, "there's very serious intelligence that's corroborated, that's multiple sourced, that indicates that al-Qaeda is intent on hitting us and hitting us hard this year." The official concedes, however, that "we don't have specific information."

If you study the previous months and years you'll see we are always getting 'increased chatter' and there's 'new intelligence' and we have 'nothing specific'. In other words, be afraid, but no - there's really no way to protect yourself - so let us take care of that by letting us do whatever the hell we want - including passing the Patriot Act, fight unnecessary wars, etc. Check out the opening few graphs of an article titled 'Creating a Comfort Zone - How to How to Build Peace of Mind in Threatening Times' from the Washington Post on March 16, 2003:

There's something in the air -- the faint and persistent buzz of hazard. Some people are plainly scared. They've been told so often "it's not if but when" that images of terrorist attack pass through their minds every day. Some people seem untouched. They face the periodic and inscrutable announcements of threat with a mix of fatalism and defiance. But nobody doubts that they're living in a changed world.

After all, the unimaginable has already happened. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were so unlikely and -- let's face it -- so successful that large-scale death from terrorism on American soil is no longer just a theoretical possibility.

So what does one do with that feeling and that fact?

It's a good question. And a really hard one to answer.

What follows in these pages is our attempt to help you come up with a reasonable and livable stance against the threat of terrorism. We're most definitely not providing answers, let alone The Answer. But we're offering some building materials that may be useful in constructing the very personal edifice that is peace of mind.

And now we have floating beer coolers... Every time I think I've seen it all from these guys... But by the time this July 4 weekend rolls around we'll be hearing another line from the Bushies - 'go enjoy your weekend'. Just the type of mixed message that continues to keep us on our toes.

Good doggie. <Ruff>!

UPDATE: Another article on the Bush Administration's fear-mongering.

National Capital Barbecue Battle

Just a shout-out. Digital Cities page here, office page here. $8 to get in, but lots of music, and the money goes to a good cause. Plus, you probably get to stuff yer face with some pretty rockin' BBQ!

Reminded myself of a restaurant in NJ called Stuff Yer Face. The one I'm thinking of, in East Brunswick, closed down - but there's another - probably the original and now only - in New Brunswick.

Wal-Mart Discriminates?

A California judge has recently granted 'class action lawsuit' status upon the Wal-Mart sexual discrimination suit. No idea if that's the correct language or not, but once a judge says 'class action', it's pretty much over for a retailer like Wal-Mart - the world's BIGGEST company. Ummm, that's pretty big.

Retailers are particularly vulnerable to public opinion - boycotts directly affect the bottom line, and they hit quickly. So this is trouble for the big guys. Wal-Mart claims to have already 'righted the ship' - and there is some evidence of that, but this matter doesn't look to go away quickly. Wal-Mart's just made too many enemies with its heavy-handedness - and knowledge of their shoddy labor practices is growing.

But, screw 'em. They deserve it. If you follow Wal-Mart labor practices, you know they're a bunch of gangsters.

The employees' class action lawsuit website is here.

There are numerous anti-Wal-Mart sites out there - here are just a few: WAL-MART WATCH, WAL-MARTyrs, Wal-Mart Litigation Project.

More articles on how Walmart might just be hurting us all in the end: The Wal-Mart You Don't Know, The Wal-Mart Effect, Group: Wal-Mart subsidies no bargain.

PBS does a mini called 'Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes To Town', based on the documentary of the same name.

Did a quick search and found at least three anti-Wal-Mart books: The Case Against Wal-Mart, In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and How Wal-Mart Is Devouring America, How Wal-Mart is Destroying America and The World and What You Can Do About It. Just hard to imagine that the Wal-Marts of yesteryear - say GM Motor Company - provoked such antipathy. But, who knows?

On the other side of things, here's a non-sucky piece from Slate that seems to have something coherent to say - strange, since most of Slate's stuff recently is virulently right-wing, and therefore idealogical, anti-logic and non-thinking.

Le Monde Selon Bush

That's French for 'The World According to Bush'. Another Bush-bashing documentary - this time, in French! Reuters article here. Official site here.

Thanks to Drudge for the scoop.

Justin Raimondo's Reagan Meltdown

Everyone's been racing to see who can kiss Reagan's ass more, now that he's finally departed, and Justin Raimondo over at AntiWar.com apparently wants to get his fair share of the the Gipper's hind quarters. Specifically, he goes after my boy Greg Palast for penning an article titled 'Killer, Coward, Conman, Good Riddance Ronnie Reagan'. I'm all for criticism - it just has to make sense - so I've taken some of my precious time to rebut some of Raimondo's absurdities. Raimondo attempts to explain himself in 'the notes' of his next piece, but it's unconvincing. C'est la vie.

Now, you'll just have to take my word for it that Justin Raimondo actually wrote this stuff; at least, some guy signing articles over at AntiWar.com with the pen name 'Justin Raimondo' wrote this stuff. It's pointless and absurd - just like most of the right-wing wacko stuff out there - but it is what it is. I can only imagine the guy snapped a blood vessel or something - who knows?

Palast: And when Hezbollah terrorists struck and murdered hundreds of American marines in their sleep in Lebanon, the TV warrior ran away like a whipped dog ... then turned around and invaded Grenada. That little Club Med war was a murderous PR stunt so Ronnie could hold parades for gunning down Cubans building an airport.

Raimondo: So invading Grenada was a crime – but bombing the crap out of Beirut wasn't? Would Palast have preferred a full scale American occupation?

Yes - invading Grenada was a crime, but more, it was a 'murderous PR stunt.' Bombing Beirut? Who bombed Beirut? The terrorists? What are you talking about? Does Palast prefer a full-scale American occupation? Probably not - he doesn't say - but he makes clear that cutting and running was not in our best interests - militarily and otherwise. We're dealing with Reagan's leftover Beirut problems today - still (@see Israeli-Palestinian conflict).

Palast: Reagan's boys called Jimmy Carter a weanie and a wuss although Carter wouldn't give an inch to the Ayatolla. Reagan, with that film-fantasy tough-guy con in front of cameras, went begging like a coward cockroach to Khomeini pleading on bended knee for the release of our hostages...Ollie North flew into Iran with a birthday cake for the maniac mullah -- no kidding --in the shape of a key. The key to Ronnie's heart.

Raimondo: [Palast] also berates Reagan for being soft on the "maniac mullahs" of Iran...the alleged peacenik, seems to have disappeared: in his place is a snarling, ravening dog of war, straining at the leash to take a good bite out of those maniacal Iranians.

I think most of us would agree that a birthday cake is pretty soft. And the 'ravenous dog of war' is a figment of Raimondo's over-active imagination. Just because someone doesn't think that tending to the Mullahs' wishes on bended knee is the best option for American diplomacy does not mean someone is an advocate for total war.

Palast: Our President said in his speech in March that when we go into Iraq, we are going there because Saddam Hussein has harbored, trained and funded terrorists, including those connected to al-Qaeda. If we are going to attack a nation and occupy it because of a connection to al-Qaeda, which never appeared, then what are we doing with Saudi Arabia?

Raimondo: Palast, who opposed the war on the grounds that it was a "war for oil," thinks we ought to have invaded Saudi Arabia, instead.

Palast hasn't called for an invasion of Saudi Arabia, he merely pointed out that invading Iraq based on the false claims that Iraq had ties to al-Qaeda should have led Bush and his cronies to invade the state that actually *is* responsible for harboring al-Qaeda - Saudi Arabia.

Raimondo's ridiculous over-reaching here really does remind me of that wacky Ann Coulter-type stuff that gets printed. I can hardly believe it's the same guy I've been reading for the past few months who has been writing some *really* good stuff on the Iraq situation. I guess everyone deserves a pass once in a while, but I still had to get this on the record since Raimondo's absurd distortions of Palast's words are on the record.

Original Child Bomb

SilverDocs is a film festival put together by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel.

I went to see one of the co-winning movies - Original Child Bomb. It was good, but absolutely, horrifyingly annoying. Is that possible? I could recommend seeing it if you have a very high tolerance level for the 'artsy/farty' in independent flicks - otherwise, skip, and keep the blood pressure down. I figure it was named co-winner because everyone would have felt guilty for not including the 'H-bomb' movie in the winners list. Some good stuff - facts related to worldwide nuclear weapons programs - specifically testing, and its unsuspecting victims - including thousands of U.S. military personnel and millions of civilians worldwide. Gruesome footage of effects the bomb had on Japanese civilians in the aftermath. Rough.

I didn't get to see the other co-winner, Death in Gaza, but I suspect it's more in-your-face-type stuff.

Kinda odd how both winners are about 'mass murder' - as George 'loser-boy' Bush likes to say.

Dogs Can Smell Cancer?

I'd heard about this phenomenon before, and it's all very scientific, apparently, but it still sounds totally bizarre to me - and cool! An MSNBC article titled 'Is there a doctor — or dog — in the house?' gives a brief synopsis on the whole dog-as-doctor thing. Dogs can be useful in other ways, too:

'He's given me my life'

Dogs that diagnose cancer may be a ways away, but some medical pooches are already on the job, warning their owners of epileptic seizures, high blood pressure, heart attacks, migraines and low blood sugar.

Leigh Meyer, of Huntersville, N.C., has suffered from severe epilepsy since she was 17. Now 35, Meyer credits her ability to live independently and take care of her four daughters to her seizure alert dog Cyrano.

“He’s given me my life,” says Meyer. “He’s offered me a chance to have a little bit of normalcy.”

A giant schnauzer who spends most of his time as a docile couch potato, Cyrano’s mood changes abruptly about 30 minutes before the onset of Meyer's seizures. Suddenly he becomes nervous and antsy, and begins pawing at Meyer and leaning on her. This signal gives her time to stop whatever she’s doing, move away from her children and prepare.

Once the seizure starts, Cyrano stands next to her until the episode is over, usually from two to four minutes. Because Meyer’s seizures are often very violent — she has broken several fingers, both collar bones and her feet during convulsions — she relies on Cyrano to keep her children out of the way. And, if a seizure occurs in a public location, she has taught him to herd the children to prevent them from wandering off.

Little research has been done to unravel the mystery behind dogs' ability to warn of a seizure or other medical crisis, but most observers believe it is based on canines' keen observational skills, sense of smell, or a combination of both.

"There would have to be some type of chemical change or physiological change in the body," says Sharon Hermansen, executive director of Canine Seizure Assist Society of North Carolina, and Cyrano's trainer. "People can't tell when (a seizure) is coming on, so there's something the dogs are doing that we can't figure out."

Un-freaking believable...

Note to Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA)

Sometimes, you only have time for something short.

Good work Re: Armed Services Radio.

Senator Harkin has been trying to get Armed Services Radio and Television System (AFRTS) to air a liberal point of view to go along with the daily dose of extremist right wing radio it gets via Rush. Seems fair to me...

Portugal Over Spain! (1-0)

Big, big, BIG win in more Euro action. Portugal is the small neighbor of Spain, and this is their first win against 'big brother.' Portugal is going buck wild, and Spain is going to be crying. This year's tournament, of course, is being held in Portugal - so, nice for the home team. Another brief article about the partying in Lisbon.

Unlucky that the crybaby English made it through, but they'll get their final comeuppance - mehopes! Props to England's new 18 year-old phenom, Wayne Rooney, though. He's got talent, and seemingly a good bit of class. He's currently the talk of the tournament, and he's far outshining Michael Owen - who himself was once an 18 year-old phenom for England, but who during this tournament, has been lackluster. In after-game interviews, the younger youngster came to the defense of his partner on the pitch:

'Michael hasn't scored tonight, but he's set up a few for me and I think the partnership's going well. We just go out there and do our jobs.'

This was important because people are talking about removing Owen from the starting lineup. Whether it's right or wrong to keep Owen on the pitch can be disputed, but to back up your currently-struggling teammate is definitely classy.

UPDATE: The English made it through to the single-elimination round, but not the Italians - so now Italy have a chance to be excuse-making crybabies!

UPDATE: Wow. This is terrible. Now the Italians are crying. Disgraceful. Check out a well-written article by James Davis over at ESPN's SoccerNet.com. It is appropriately very critical of the Italians for suggesting conspiracy on the pitch just to clear Italy's own lack of fortitude. Even worse than the Brits. Sheesh.

UPDATE: The English are crying again?! How many excuses can one football team possibly make? But wait! Beckham is taking responsibility? Say it isn't true?! Yes, it isn't true! It's the fault of the Spanish! Why didn't I think of that? It's so obvious. Those damn Spaniards! Thanks to The Telegraph for pointing out that England's losses were, of course, England's fault. Some on parts of Airstrip 1 seem to believe that the 2006 World Cup will be England's return to glory. Ummm...news flash y'all - Europe is no longer as dominant as it used to be; 4 of the top 10 teams in the world are from outside of Europe. And we all know about the dangerous Africans, and the rapidly up-and-coming Asian teams. Below is the current FIFA World Rankings - don't forget about #9 - mf!

  Rank     Team

  ----   ---------

   1     Brazil

   2     France

   3     Spain

   4     Mexico

   5     Argentina

   5     Netherlands

   5     Turkey 

   8     Germany 

   9     USA

  10     Italy

UPDATE: Portugal has lost and are...gracious in defeat? Unbelievable. And who better to lead the way than the youngest player on Portugal's team (19), Cristiano Ronaldo. I couldn't imagine a better person to show-up the classless English (Beckham, especially), and all the other sore losers. Ronaldo said 'I don't like their (Greece's) style of football but they are worthy winners.' Honest, and honorable. No excuses.

Ethnic Cleansing

Genocide is occurring in Sudan, but this Washington Post editorial seems more concerned that Bush's foreign policy reputation not be stained like Clinton's (Rwanda) - than it is about the actual killing.

Hold Elections In Iraq Now!

Jim Hoagland does a column in the WaPost titled 'Mickey Mouse and the U.N.'. In it he addresses the need for immediate elections in Iraq. In summary, he writes:

This is written not to bash the United Nations but to underscore some obvious points: Elections do not have to be perfect, or even peaceful, to bring positive change. The perfect can be made the enemy of the good. When in doubt, trust the people.

This blogger couldn't agree more, so I wrote Mr. Hoagland:

Most people outside the U.S. know that immediate elections in Iraq are necessary and doable - just ask General Jay Garner, who was fired after trying to do elections within two months of his arrival. The reason we haven't had elections yet, and the reason we won't have elections until sometime in 2006, earliest, is because the Bush cartel does not want elections. Elections could mean democracy - which could mean loss of control of Iraq's vast mineral wealth. Bush/Cheney and company will be sure to fully financially colonize Iraq before allowing any elections to take place - of this we can be sure.

Similarly, if Kerry were to take office, what incentive would he have to hurry elections, knowing that his 'good' stewardship of America's newest imperial colony could only bode well for his re-election chances.

Your point that 'elections do not have to be perfect' is absolutely spot-on. We need the Post to bring this issue to the fore and make it something we can actually talk about. Of course, this is not in the Bush Administration's interests - thus we are unlikely to see such a discussion arise from the pages of the Post.

Pretending that the U.N. - especially as concerns Iraq - is anything but an enabler for U.S. interests there is misleading, at best. Whatever the U.N. election director says concerning Iraq, you can be sure it's been rubberstamped by the U.S. administration.

Allies Must Step Up

The WaPost has an article by regular columnist Robert Kagan (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and guest co-author Ivo H. Daalder (The Brookings Institution) entitled 'The Allies Must Step Up'. I'm not kidding - that's really the title, only, as you might expect - it gets much, much worse should you decide to actually read the White House's their patronizing prose. From the title you can guess what kind of hooey we're about to be fed, but I wanted to contact these guys and let them know that they're going to get called when shilling for this, or any, Administration. Hounding people to be honest brokers of information does have an effect, though how much is debatable.

Here's my email (with HTML reformatting for this blog) to Kagan and our Ivo. Ivo, for all his degrees and honors, doesn't have the guts to list a contact email address, so I used the 'Foreign Policy Studies' email address provided as a link at the bottom of his Brookings page. I also copied the WaPost ombudsman. Why not?

Dear Mr. Kagan and Mr. Daalder,

I found your recent article 'The Allies Must Step Up' to be misleading and dishonest. I'll address only the primary argument you use to push this Administration's position that it is now time for our allies to 'step up'.

Your statement that 'Iraq will enjoy full sovereignty after June 30, not limited sovereignty' is plainly not true, not symbolically - by way of UN Resolution 1546, nor in actuality - by way of continued 'back-door' U.S. influence over Iraq.

In the very first bullet point of UN Resolution 1546, we have: [The UN Security Council] endorses the formation of a sovereign Interim Government of Iraq, as presented on 1 June 2004, which will assume full responsibility and authority by 30 June 2004 for governing Iraq while refraining from taking any actions affecting Iraq’s destiny beyond the limited interim period until an elected Transitional Government of Iraq assumes office as envisaged in paragraph four below;. Of course, a government cannot be 'fully sovereign' if it may only take actions which will only be in effect for the next seven or eight months. This statement is truly Orwellian: You are free to govern Iraq - just don't do anything that might affect Iraq's future. Brilliant.

Most major news organizations in the world that reside outside U.S. borders have rightly claimed the handover of Iraq a 'sham'. Yet even the Wall Street Journal reports in its May 13 column, 'Behind the Scenes, U.S. Tightens Grip On Iraq's Future': The new Iraqi government will have little control over its armed forces, lack the ability to make or change laws and be unable to make major decisions within specific ministries without tacit U.S. approval, say U.S. officials and others familiar with the plan. Full sovereignty, gentlemen?

Your dishonest shilling for the current Administration brings disrepute upon yourselves, and both of your organizations. Your allegiance to this Administration is neither patriotic nor helpful to U.S. interests. We need honest policy discussions - not further disinformation from 'independent' think tanks and 'peace' organizations.

Should either of you have a genuine interest in helping the U.S. become successful in Iraq, I suggest you read a couple of articles by Middle East scholars with more allegiance to the truth than this Administration:

The New and Improved Iraq, Juan Cole, In These Times

Government Attacks on Area Specialists Called Disservice to U.S. Middle East Policy, Leslie Evans on remarks by Rashid Khalidi, UCLA International Institute, Center for Near Eastern Studies

Thank you.

p.s. The UN Resolutions mentions the not-so-secret, secret and non-institution, institution Paris Club. Hmmmm. Reminds me of Richard Perle's involvement with the Bilderberg club during the run-up to the invasion. The Asia Times does a good write-up on Bilderberg here. The Asia Times also prints a bunch of unfriendly letters about that write-up. I don't know which is true - I'm just kind of amazed that such an exclusive club even exists! It's like crazy international espionage James Bond-type stuff.

The Korean Drudge?

Seems most people who know Matt Drudge either love him or hate him. His Drudge Report website is part gossip, part conservative news lede generator. He may soon have competition.

South Korean reporter and entrepreneur Oh Yeon Ho has created a website called OhmyNews.com that makes 'every citizen a reporter'. This tagline is essentially the same as Drudge's musings: "this is the digital age, everybody's a reporter, who decides? I don't force people to come to my site. Either they think I'm trustworthy or they don't." In general, I agree with Drudge. And as I've been blogging these past few months - and followed the 'real' news sources - major tv networks and newspapers - I'm now completely convinced that Drudge is *much* more reliable, and *much* less biased than any other news source. That goes for CNN, Fox, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. We could debate it, but right now, that's where I'm at.

Check out the Newsweek article here.

Anything that weakens the big corporations' hold on the media is a good thing, in my opinion...

UPDATE: Here is the English version of Ho's site.

Verified Voting Rally!

Tuesday (June 22) at 11:45 am Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) will hold a press conference/rally near the Capitol Building to gain support for the The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003 (H.R. 2239). This bill will require a paper trail for every vote.

This is important! It's not enough to vote! You have to be able to prove who you voted for!

National Rally for Voter Verified Paper Ballots
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
11:45am to 1:00pm

Cannon Terrace, just south of the U.S. Capitol, between Cannon and Longworth House Office Buildings
(At the corner of New Jersey and Independence)
Nearest Metro station: Capitol South

UPDATE: This was a great little event. Finally managed to get some pics of one of many 'commy' events I attend.

Reps who spoke at the rally included Rep. Marcy Kaptur (OH), Rep. John Lewis (GA), Rep. Robert Wexler (FL), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL), and Rep. Jay Inslee (WA) also spoke at the rally.

Special props go out to Rep. John Lewis because of his strong background on voting right, having been a primary crusader for the black vote back in the day - he's got the scars to prove it. If you don't know his story, go read up.

I overheard one encounter a demonstrator had with a jerky Republican staffer. Never fails - it seems that whenever I go to one of these things there is *always* at least one jerky Republican staffer who is anti-Democracy and very condescending of public demonstrations. It's really unbelievable if you think about the fact we're talking about a non-partisan issue here. Unbelievable - unless you consider what the American Republican party consists of these days - spoiled, ignorant, rich people exploiting the base fears of the American public and the 'redneck vote' to keep their puppet in office. How much progress could we make with no Republicans in office? Horrible people.

People like to make all sorts of excuses for Republicans and the Republican Party and platform, but I fully believe what Chomsky has said forever now - that the elite - the financially and politically powerful - hate democracy and are its more fierce enemies, because democracy is the only thing that can threaten their power. Many on both sides of the aisle do their best to remain in power - regardless of what democracy calls for - but the Republican party is especially immoral and lawless when it comes to maintaining their grip. Bush's term here will be a demonstration to any future enlightened society of how corrupting power can be.

There were some cameras. Saw a mobile CNN camera buzzing around. A few note-taking reporter-types.

Hadn't heard of Common Cause before today.

Rush Holt at the lecturn with Democracy for America rep in white t-shirt off to left, Rock the Vote guy in the blue shirt, obscured-with-purplish-shirt True Majority guy, and a bunch of Representatives.

And a shot of the Computer Ate My Vote guy and a bunch of other signs.

White Castle!

New flick about White Castle! It even stars New Jersey! how bad could it be? Check out Harold & Kumar.

Freudian Ford Folks

Ford Motor Car's lawyer might have made a Freudian slip the other day during closing arguments. He may have suggested - admitted - that Ford knowingly put defective automobiles on the market. Several pending lawsuits allege such - with one woman injured in yet another Ford rollover a massive sum of money - $368 million.

One of the best scenes of Fight Club was when the narrator of the story (Edward Norton) tells the lady in the plane seat next to him about his job. Edward - the narrator - is an insurance inspector - so he goes to horrific auto accidents and sees all that's to be seen. He tells his seat-mate about the formula that his employer - a 'major auto company' - uses to decided whether to fix an auto defect, or just put it on the market and deal with the lawsuits. If the total cost of the lawsuits is less than the total cost to fix the defect, the defect doesn't get fixed - and subsequently, people die and are maimed. Nice. But the truth.

Here's a link to the Ford cars which burn alive police officers.

FRONTLINE has a cool site set up to talk about the SUV rollover problem - a problem with is not specific to Ford. Of course, the whole blame game between Ford and Firestone is only a couple of years old at this point.

If you ask me, they're all a bunch of gangsters. Why anyone would buy an American car, much less a Ford, is beyond me...

Enforcing Death

Another shout out to Political Theory for a link to this totally bizarre, but totally cool article. It is subtitled 'Critics of life extension fear the risks of longer lives but don't acknowledge the danger and difficulty of enforcing death'. Check it out.

Spite Voters Rule

Thanks to Political Theory for pointing out this article on how stupid white men vote for the Republican Party - even though they know it's not in their best interests - just to spite 'liberals'.

UPDATE: I sent a note to the author of this article just to say 'good job' and they offered to publish it, so I was like 'cool'. If I thought they might have wanted to publish it I would have said something intelligent. The title given to my letter is 'Bile Brigade', and I actually don't know what that is supposed to mean. You can find it here, along with a bunch of other letters.

p.s. This NEW YORK PRESS paper seems like it might actually be good. I just went back to check out some more articles and it's at least unique. I'm tired of the typical 'alternative newspaper' of whatever town, giving us the same old coverstory - usually with accomanying and disheartenly-desperate and depressing cover photo - on the local rundown homeless center, the southside drugs-back-to-work program, the community hero, or the latest police brutality scandal. I'm talking about papers like the Washington CityPaper and the Village Voice. Who knows - maybe I'm just generalizing - probably am - but this NY Press thing seems like a typical alternative paper and the allegedly-intellectual New York Review of Books. We'll see...all I'm saying is, don't put an amazingly-depressing cover photo and story on your fishwrap every week and maybe someone other than the goth kid and bored college student would pick it up.

Jewish Terrorists In Our Midst

Some loser Jewish terrorist sucka will have to stand trial after continually lying to prosecutors. Sucka.

Originally found this article on al-Jazeera.

UPDATE: And what's up with the plea bargain b.s.? Think you'd see a plea bargain deal for a suspected Muslim terrorist?

UPDATE: Another article on the conviction of a non-Arab, non-Muslim terrorist. The judge conveniently ruled that the psycho-Christian defendent wasn't a terrorist because there was no international element to his crimes. Okay. Terrorism isn't terrorism, I guess, unless it's a brown guy - ahem, I mean - unless it's international terrorism. Nice.