Randominity

I don't post much anymore, 'cause no one's reading. I ought to anyway, lest my half-broken brain turn to complete mush.

So here are some mostly random observations and scattered thoughts. Enjoy!

My country is being operated as an ongoing criminal enterprise. Were it a prtivate company, it would be liable for a laundry list of conspiracy charges under the RICO statutes most commonly applied to Organized Crime as we used to know it. The plunder of Iraq is thievery on a staggering scale. The looting of the public treasury here in the United States by Shrub and his many many corporate friends is nothing less than astonishing, and it's not over yet. Repeated tax cut packages further swell the pockets of those who need it the least while crucial services are being cut off due to a lack of funds.

Ya think?

Prosecutors in the Laci Peterson case need to shut the fuck up. Trying this case in the media is the pervue of the defense, and something not looked upon very highly by most folks. Having the agents of the state, whose job is to follow and apply the law, leaking shit all over the media stage is revolting. Then again, take a look at the DC sniper case for an example of how to take a mighty steaming piss into the jury pool...

To say the Shrubministration overstated the case concerning weapons of mass destruction would be to understate the truth, if you'll permit me to butcher the language in ways that amuse me. Colin Powell, allegedly the man in government with integrity coming out of his fucking ears, lied his way through that crucial presentation to the UN, knowing he was doing so every last second of it. The French, a contrary people still harboring aspirations to empire themselves, had it right from the start. The only thing to go after was Hussein himself, and Shrubministration bleatings aside, that was never the aim or justification for invading Iraq, killing thousands of civilians, loosing chaos upon the land, and stealing all of the oil for our greedy selves.

Oops. That sounds suspiciously like the truth of it!

Next up, Iran! Woohoo!

I am not afraid of SARS. Neither should you be. It has killed fewer people in its run than malaria kills in a single day. or AIDS. And so on. It does happen to translate well to a television "news" envorionment, what with all of those Chinese wearing face masks. Too bad it didn't come up so hard on the media radar a little later - it could have been the summer non-story to flog until the fall brings us something else approximating real news. Achoo!

Reality TV isn't. 'Nuff said.

Molly Ivins On The FCC.

(from Alternet)

In Plain Sight

I trust you all are paying attention, 'cause the wholesale thievery by the Shrub administration continues unabated.

Iraq has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Friends Of Shrub Inc., and the FCC, run by Colin Powell's corporate clone son Michael, has relaxed the remaining restrictions on concentrated media ownership even further. The "public" airwaves, which have not been public in decades, have truly been given away, and your tax dollars paid the salaries of those who did it. This is the second time in under a decade that a wholesale giveaway has been granted to the giant media companies, who benefitted wildly from the Telecommunications Act passed by Congress and signed by that alleged liberal Bill Clinton into law. The following morning, waves of enormous media mergers were announced in a multi-billion dollar feeding frenzy on a scale unlike anything in the history of USA, inc.

And so in the coming months, while less spectacular, expect a number of similar mergers to take place, as media companies move to consolidate right to the limits of ownership, flimsy as they are now, while pushing for the destruction of the last, tissue thin regulations preventing a single company from literally owning all of the media in a given market, or all of the TV stations in the United States.

The argment is made that in the new century, new rules must come into play, that new media allows a wide variety of voices to be heard. The untruth in this argument is both obivous and simple to understand - media companies are larger than ever, and more diverse than ever in their holdings. ISP's and TV/movie compannies are now one, and own cable systems, newspapers, television and radio stations within their corporate umbrellas. The Internet, while wondrous in so many ways, is also more of a top-dog environment, as the entire concept of search engines and the way they function serve to promote the popular over the accurate or comprehensive. In raw terms, fewer companies already own more media than ever before in our history, and yesterday's FCC ruling, so clearly not in the public interest (which that organization allegedly exists to serve), paves the way toward an even narrower pyramid of ownership.

Oil is proving to be the driving factor in the Shrub annexation of Iraq. Yeah yeah yeah, it's great that Saddam Hussein is gone, but that was never the aim, rationale, or true consideration in the manufacture of a motive to make a bold oil grab in the Middle East - not at all. As the Pentagon looks foolish trying to deny that the Saving Of Private Lynch was as staged as the opening scene of the Tom Hanks film, the US has strong-armed the UN into dropping the sanctions against Iraq, unlocking the oil deposits. It is said the wealth generated by that oil is destined for the pockets of "the people of Iraq," but in the same news reports that carry such administration statements can be found a brief explanation of the true destiny for all of that black gold - American corporate pockets. See, the oil is tro be sold at market price, and the proceeds used to pay all of those American companies, er, make that the few American companies able to penetrate the private bidding process, that are "rebuilding" Iraq. So, the taxpayers of the US (and following another mammoth tax break giveaway to the rich, this means the middle to lower class) and the people of Iraq are joined together as benefactors of wealthy American corporations.

It is raw thievery, and were it committed by individuals and not countries, Interpol would be making mass arrests of the perpetrators.