Indian Raid Brings Death To Hostages

If the Indian commandos and their superiors had a reasonable expectation that the hostages would be murdered when they raided - that raises the question - should the commandos and their superiors be charged with murder? Perhaps a lesser crime?

Obama fucking everything up already

He's about to put this warmongering bitch, Hillary, in SecState position. I'm tired of the "I'm a woman, watch me kill some Iraqis" game. Can't we have someone normal?

I guess all the men are cowards, too. Oh, well.

When Will Mainstream Democrats Take Voter Roll Scrubbing Seriously?

Maybe after Obama loses in a couple of weeks, despite national and state polls showing him up several percentage points:

During elections in New Mexico earlier this year, one in nine voters found that their names had disappeared from the electoral rolls. Whole streets of voters in poor neighbourhoods vanished. In Colorado, the disenfranchisement is even greater, with 20 per cent of voters excluded from the rolls.

I promise to say, "I told you so," right after I get back from my first round of direct action.

Riot!

That's what needs to happen after Obama loses the election, but Bush is prepared. He didn't bring those troops home for nothing.

Polls Don't Take Into Account Voter Roll Cleansing

The people who have had their voting registration record wiped from the system won't know until they show up at the polls that they're unable to vote. Then, if they're extremely persistent, they'll only be able to cast a provisional ballot - which will probably be thrown away.

So, in the case of Michigan Republicans admitting to engaging in vast voter crimes, liberal bloggers don't seem to care that the polls don't accurately reflect who will actually be able to vote on November 4 - the polls will inaccurately put Obama ahead comfortably.

MBAR Sounds Like Prince, Too

The kid's got chops. Bob Dylan. Prince. Call it what you want. I call it awesome.

Acorn Registers Mickey Mouse?

No. Drudge lied again - the state rejected the registration attempt. It's just another way for Drudge, the Republican political operative, to try to deceive voters. So what's new?

Headlines you won't find on Drudge? Republicans in Michigan illegally de-registered 1,438 voters.

The blacks will take over

These folks are crazy.

How to be an asshole during a downturn

Just write a bunch of self-important shit about why everyone should listen to you because you kept your shitty wage slavery job.

Message to all superior-sounding jobbed folks as they feel the need to dole out advice to the unjobbed over the next couple of years:  FUCK. YOU.

p.s. I happen to be jobbed at the moment, so no worries, here, but self-important assholes will come along with this same shit every downtown. It's like clockwork - downtown upon us, look out for the poop stew.

What's wrong with Linda Lingle?

The name sounds a bit funny because....well, I've just never heard it before. But here's the weird part - you've seen her on TV before.

Linda Lingle is the current governnor of Hawaii. She's the most prominent female Republican - or was, until Palin took over.

And you know what? Like Palin, Lingle had, at least in one point in time, astoundingly high approval ratings. I'd guess she probably still did until she started using child protective services as a political weapon to crush dissent. Can you imagine anything more disgusting? I mean, there might be outright rape and murder, but this is the next best thing. If you kill the credibility of child protective services, you kill, rape, torture, and make suffer thousands of children in your state - it's that simple. And Linda Lingle pushed for that to happen. Beautiful person.

But Republicans, while still human, can act very anti-human - so this should not have been any sort of dealbreaker for them. Most abused children are poor, right - so what's the big deal with discrediting the agency that protects them, really? Children can't vote, and they sure as heck can't pay bribes to politicians, so what good are they?

But why didn't McCain choose Lingle for VP? She was married and divorced twice, and has no children. Is all of that enough reason not to pick someone for VP? She was chairperson of the 2004 RNC in New York City, where she helped the NYPD go around and arrest thousands of civilians - no small effort. She's been on TV. She's articulate. She trumpets the party line. She's the perfect fit, right?

Well, there's this one other thing. Linda Lingle looks.....gay. Was that enough to crush her chances of running for VP for the Republican party?

I hope it wasn't Triumph that ruined everything for her and Hawaii. Poor poor Hawaii.

Jets Try to Murder Anquan Boldin...Literally.

If this hit by Eric Smith and the other Jet is not attempted murder, then I don't know what is.

And it's not a done deal yet, because Anquan is still in the hospital. We don't even know if he'll ever walk again, though thankfully, things are looking promising.

I'm not sure how the NFL could let Eric Smith ever play again. I'm not sure how the State of New Jersey cannot levy attempted murder charges against Eric Smith and the other Jet. At a minimum, it would have to be some sort of felony assault charge. I won't say it, but if things were bad, you could bet that charges would be filed. And they should be.

Things took a turn for the worse when the League did not do anything in response to the dirty play that put Tom Brady out for the year. The guy tried to end Brady's career. We'll see if he was successful or not.

This crime was just the logical next step.

Both Eric Smith and the other Jet that hit Boldin helmet-to-helmet deserve to go to jail for the rest of their lives.

Can Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson escape the curse of TVOTR and Grizzly Bear endorsements?

I really don't fuckin know. It seems every blogger, and newsperson, who writes about Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson (MBAR) feels the need to attribute any appearance of MBAR's talent to the alleged talents of TV on the Radio and Grizzly Bear - his producers, co-workers, friends, etc. Of course, that might be the case, but I don't buy it. You can produce the fuck out of something, but it's usually pretty easy to hear. And now that I've heard MBAR live, it's obvious - I was right - the dude is at least as good, at least as talented, as we suspected. And it has nothing at all to do with his producers or endorsements.

Even a recent Boston Globe article can't help but mention that it's OK to write about MBAR because, he's been endorsed, dontchaknow?

He's the 25-year-old kid endorsed by TV on the Radio and Grizzly Bear - two of the biggest bands in the overheated indie troposphere.

Maybe I'm not awestruck by these endorsements because, until MBAR came along, I had never heard of TVOTR nor Grizzly Bear.

At least the Globe tries to recover a bit, and allows one of his endorsers to suggest that maybe, just maybe, this kid from Portland might actually not be a brain-dead hack -- that he might, in fact, have some talent of his very own:

"People like to feel that suffering is the only truth, and that's the only place where real beauty can come from," says Kyp Malone, the frontman of TV on the Radio. "That comes from rock 'n' roll and all the archetypes - the geniuses dead at 27, all strung out. Miles has a lot of that in him. He's also really, really smart. I feel like whatever he wants, he can have it. Or he can blow it. Either way, he's added something to my life already. My life has been enriched."

It's kind of odd to say it - I think it's probably just the nature of hack bloggers who can't think for themselves - but I wonder if racism has anything to do with this. I mean, is it possible that a black (mixed race?) kid could have talent? And could, like, write stuff down on paper that was, like, smart? I know white people tend to scoff at the idea that racism is deeply rooted in the American psyche - it's not something that is pleasant to talk about - but when someone with such magnificent talent rolls around, and every blogger everywhere is falling all over themselves to explain how something like this could possibly happen - and they all come to the same conclusion - it's not the black kid, it's someone else - how could it be anything but plain old racism? It's his producers. It's the weather. Who knows what the fuck. It's anything but the obvious. Why is this so difficult to come to terms with?

Note to all syncophantic MBAR bloggers everywhere -- stop being such whiny little incontinent spewers of your own subservience - it's boring. Grow some, and write something with confidence. If you love the dude, say it. If you hate the dude, say it. Go on the record. Don't hide behind this "well, so and so produced him" bullshit.

[Update:] Found some text that almost qualifies as genuine praise. It's still got the obligatory refs to producers, but we're getting closer:

9:10, Roseland
Portlanders, you need to know Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson. The Portland native defected to New York after high school (he’s a Wilson HS grad) and became chummy with the bands Grizzly Bear and TV on the Radio—who have since helped him scale the ranks of New York’s music scene. He broke a guitar string on the first song, and his voice was shot, but Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson was fuckin’ incredible. (WH)

Developing...

...still got the obligatory TVOTR ref, but some refs have dropped out. This is promising.

It's starting to look possible....Obama in the White House

Not that I expect anything of signficance to actually change, but even if this article on how McCain damned to die those POWs left behind doesn't gain much traction, it's looking like Obama could win this thing.

But, as we all know, it's not who casts the votes, it's who counts the votes. Ohio. Florida. I'm looking at you guys.

I wouldn't be surprised if people get a rude awakening at about 7am on Wednesday morning, November 5th, when the news stations start congratulating our new president and vice-president, John 'I-fucked-the-POWs' McCain and Sarah 'Even-my-own-party-hated-me' Palin.

It was Clinton's fault, too

The same as Clinton shares a great amount of blame for the Iraq Invasion, he shares blame for the current economic meltdown, too.

If you have my worldview, facts like this are not that surprising at all -- in fact, they're the only things that can make the world make any sense at all. The facts may not be morally right, but they're not confusing to me.

I don't run around saying things like, "Why don't the Democrats ever do anything??!!," like so many of my breathless brothers and sisters -- on both sides of the aisle. The answer is simple - they don't care, and even if a few actually did care, they're not in a position to do anything about it - they're just doing what they're told. Sure, they could throw themselves out of office if they wanted to, but expecting egomaniacs to stop being egomaniacs is not what I would consider a sane strategy.

Clinton's economic legacy goes far beyond the economic disasters that are NAFTA and Iraq:

The meltdown is a bipartisan affair. Presidential contenders John McCain and Barack Obama each have received millions of dollars from these very companies that are collapsing and are receiving the corporate welfare. President Clinton and his treasury secretary, Robert Rubin (now an Obama economic adviser), presided over the repeal in 1999 of the Glass-Steagall Act, passed after the 1929 start of the Great Depression to curb speculation that caused that calamity. The repeal was pushed through by former Republican Sen. Phil Gramm, one of McCain’s former top advisers. Politicians are too dependent on Wall Street to do anything. The people who vote for them, and whose taxes are being handed over to these failed financiers, need to show their outrage and demand that their leaders truly put “country first” and bring about “change.”

Glass-Steagall Act.

Man, the dude is still wrecking shit 8 years after he's been out of office! Damn.

Are you willing to fight for it?

Voter suppression is going to be key this election, as with the previous two elections. Tens to hundreds of thousands of black votes will be rejected one way or another - probably, again, mostly through illegal cleansing of the voter rolls. The question is, how will disenfranchised voters react? And how will white Obama supporters react?

Will people organize massive civil disobedience campaigns across the nation, bringing the Battle in Seattle to all corners of the States?

Or will people just accept injustice again?

Should be an interesting 4th of November. Maybe we'll get lucky, and the party will stretch into the 5th of November.

Republicans: The Party that Wrecked America

I think it's good branding. Too bad the Dems suck.

Cop killer gets justice; Becomes hero

On July 1 of this year, just before the Olympics in China, a man went on a revenge rampage and killed six police officers and wounded four others - with a knife.

In the US, African Americans are the folks most likely to be harassed, arrested, detained, humiliated, beat, tortured, and murdered by police - so they're the ones who are usually not crying when a cop gets murdered. But in China, most people are victims of the police, so they're on the side of the cop-killer, Yang Jia.

I can't seem to find an explanation as to how a lone guy with a knife managed to murder six armed policemen and injure four others.

Police should be subject to the rule of law, and even moreso to the rule of justice, because laws are arbitrary, and stacked against regular citizens. If Chinese police continue to be above the law and reproach, then we can expect more mass murder revenge killings.

What did they do to him while he was in custody?

...i wasn't kidding.

MBAR

In case you haven't been following the Twitter feed, please think about giving some attention to 'the best artist that will probably play in your town this year'.

...um, yeah, great show. Way too short, though. MBAR opened for a couple of other bands. Kinda crazy. Some video goodness:

AIG part of the House of Cards

Man, read this WSJ article to get a feel for what a house of cards the entire U.S. financial system is. The shit that the state and federal governments are doing to keep this pyramid scheme afloat is hilarious.

Tellin ya - best get your money out, now. Buy gold. Stock up. Panic. Learn to do something useful. Be prepared to be good neighbors. Start a garden. Buy a bike. Sell your car while you still can. Your boss is about to come down on you for the best reason in the world - because in a down economy, workers become the assholes, and managers become true Gods. Don't like working 60 hours a week, Mr. Family Man with two kids, two car payments, and dog? Well 'Fuck you', Mr. Family, man - it's my way or the highway.

Happy end times in America.

Still not into that bridge barrier, huh?

Maybe something like this might help you think again:

Newsom doesn't 'get it'

My daughter, Casey, was a big fan of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's. He even gave the commencement speech this year at Redwood High where she would have graduated had she not ended her life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Unfortunately, the mayor copped-out on the bridge suicide barrier issue.

I find it hard to believe that he "wrestled" with this issue. What is it about "impulse suicide" and "means restriction" that he doesn't understand? How can he not be utterly ashamed of himself that this bridge is in a class by itself as the overwhelming world leader in deaths.

The second deadliest bridge in the U.S. hosts one-tenth the suicides as his "iconic" bridge does, and it is getting a barrier!

Every other world-class city that has "wrestled" with this issue put saving lives first.

Why does everyone else get it but San Francisco's mayor?

John Brooks, Tiburon TWIN CITIES

I didn't know this until recently, but a bridge 'barrier' doesn't have to obstruct views of the bay - it can be set down below the railing, so that anyone who jumps gets caught by a big net-like thing.

I'm for the barrier/net.