Step away from the newspaper

Ann Coulter now has fierce competition in the Batshit Wingnut Sweepstakes. Bernadette Malone is vying for the crown with these goodies.

NEXT WEEK, people who hate Republicans plan to release swarms of mice in New York City to terrorize delegates to the National Republican Convention.

Republican-haters plan on dressing up as RNC volunteers, and giving false directions to little blue hair ladies from Kansas, sending them into the sectors of New York City that are unfit for human habitation.

They plan on throwing pies and Lord knows what else at Republican visitors to the city. Prostitutes with AIDS plan to seduce Republican visitors, and discourage the use of condoms, according to liberal journalist Ted Rall.

Never mind that Ted Rall actually said this:

Creatively altered maps of streets and subways will be handed out to button-clad stupid white men. Other saboteurs wearing fake RNC T-shirts will direct them to parts of town where Bush's policies have hit hardest.
Rumor has it that prostitutes suffering from sexually transmitted diseases will discourage the use of condoms with Republican customers.

Seems the bat-shitters are losing their grip on reality beneath the shadow of the impending Republican orgy due to start in NY this coming week. While this woman is particularly off the rails, there is much sweaty thigh rubbing taking place over the prospect of violence during the convention. Salivating, one might say, by those who would profit most from chaos outside the convention hall - Republicans.

It strikes me as more than likely there will be violence during the Republican gathering, and any that does occur wil be blamed on John Kerry. Some may well be started by the tiny contingent of "protesters" whose only committment is to their own entertainment and self-glorification. And some is very likely to be ignited by people planted in the crowds by law enforcement itself, or the Republican apparatus, perhaps the same folks who set up the bow tie riot in Florida during th evote recounts n 2000. Some may recall all of those peple pounding on the doors of the courthouse were actually House and Senate staffers to prominent Republican politicians.

Plants are a very old tactic used to spark violence and discredit large scale protests by casting all in the light shed by a very few. The police can also be directed to corner the protesters and force a pitched battle, a la Seattle and Miami. It would serve the Republicans to have violent confrontations between the police and those in opposition to the current administration. Such confrontations will be excessively covered by the media, used by the Republicans to further smear John Kerry, and will provide yet another fear bludgeon with which the Shrubites can beat citizens into submission.

Yes, Bernadette Malone is batshit crazy, pining away for a "strongman" to step in and put those who would legitimately oppose the recoronation of the Shrub firmly in their place. As in Seattle and Miami, she may well get her wish. Trapped in the middle will be all of those non-violent protesters, and those Americans who take citizenship seriously.

David And Goliath, Part 23.

Faux News is inherently not news, nor is it even marginally acquainted with the notion of journalism, nor truth. "Fair and balanced" goes the slogan, a clever marketing ploy, if not the guiding principle of an organization that is little more than the unofficial propaganda arm of the Repulican party.

Taking a page from the litigious networks own playbook, the brave (or foolhardy) folks at Alternet have filed suit to cancel Faux's famous trademark, claiming it is misleading and deceptive. Having seen the new documentary by Robert Greenwald entitled "Outfoxed" just last night, I can't quibble with Alternet's basis for suit. "Outfoxed" is an outstanding piece of documentary journalism, and readily, thoroughly exposes Murdoch and Faux as frauds. It is also available as a "thank you" should you decide to contribute funds to the Alternet legal fund.

Personally, I'd go a step further and include the "We report, you decide" slogan (We report, you comply!) as false, not to mention insulting, given the drivel Fuax spews over the cablewaves. But that's just me. :)

Guess Who?

A bunch of cash and equipment went AWOL in Iraq.

Guess who wound up with it?

From Alternet:

Missing: One giant generator owned by the United States military. Estimated cost: $734,863

Last seen: Somewhere in Iraq.

While much of the media is focused on the pitched battle over the control of the holy shrine in Najaf, a bigger scandal is brewing in Iraq that may well have an equally important effect on the future of the U.S. occupation.

A team of auditors was dispatched to Iraq in late January this year after a string of internal reports showed that the military was wasting billions of dollars of taxpayer money. They have issued eleven reports since June 25, almost all of which have pointed to the misuse of the money allocated for reconstruction, be it Iraqi or Congress-appropriated funds.

According to two of these reports issued in late July by Stuart Bowen, the auditor-inspector general of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), not only have a full one-third of the items purchased by the Pentagon gone MIA (including the pricey generator), but a whopping. $1.9 billion or more of Iraqi oil revenue has also mysteriously disappeared.

Embarrassed military authorities did eventually track down the missing generator and much of the money, both of which seemed to have ended up with none other than Halliburton. As it turns out they weren't missing after all; it's just that Dick Cheney's former employer had misplaced or conveniently forgotten to turn in the receipts to the correct people.

Complete story.

No connection :)

We are told President Shrub will not repudiate the Swift Boat Vets fraudulent ads concerning John Kerry's war record because the group has absolutely no ties to the campaign or the Republican party.

This is a lie.

Some polls indicate the false ads are having some effect on the numbers in Shrub's favor. Should that effect dminish or be reversed, the prez and his party will change their tune (flip-flop?) and denounce the ads in the most stentorian of tones.

From the Washington Post.

Bush Campaign Drops Swift Boat Ad Figure
Democrat's Team Says Veteran's Role in Drive to Discredit
Kerry Shows a Link

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page A13


CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug. 21 -- The Bush campaign said late
Saturday that it dismissed an adviser on veterans issues
after learning that he is part of an independent group that
has been running anti-Kerry ads.

The Bush campaign said Kenneth Cordier, who appears in a new
advertisement to be aired by the anti-Kerry group, Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth, will no longer serve in his
voluntary position on Bush's veterans steering committee. A
Bush spokesman said Cordier had not previously informed the
campaign that he had been involved with the group, but the
Kerry campaign said the matter provides evidence supporting
its complaint to the Federal Election Commission alleging
illegal cooperation between the campaign and the independent
group.

"Col. Cordier did not inform the campaign of his involvement
in the advertisement being run by a 527 organization," Bush
campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt wrote in a statement,
referring to the technical name for independent groups such
as the Swift boat organization. Schmidt said Cordier "will
no longer participate as a volunteer for Bush-Cheney '04."

Cordier's connection to the Bush campaign was made public
yesterday by the Kerry campaign, which found that Cordier
had been named on the Bush Web site earlier this month as a
member of the veterans committee but that his name had
subsequently been removed. A Bush aide said Cordier, who
spent six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and was a
Bush supporter in 2000, called the campaign to disclose his
involvement on Friday and was told he could no longer serve
as an adviser to the campaign.

The ads by the Swift boat group, named for the type of boat
Kerry commanded during the Vietnam War, has been causing a
furious debate between the campaigns, with Kerry demanding
that Bush condemn the ads that suggest that Kerry did not
earn his war decorations and that he betrayed his fellow
veterans by his later antiwar activity. The Bush campaign
has said it opposes ads by all outside groups but declined
to specifically criticize the Swift boat ads.

The Swift boat veterans ad featuring Cordier, to air this
week in Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada, shows footage
of Kerry's antiwar testimony from 1971. "He betrayed us in
the past -- how can we be loyal to him now?" Cordier said in
the ad.

Cordier could not be reached at his home in Dallas last
night.

Kerry campaign spokesman Chad Clanton said the Cordier
matter added more weight to its complaint filed last week
with the FEC. "This is another brick in the wall of evidence
that the Bush campaign is behind this smear," he said. "No
wonder the president won't condemn the ads."

Under law, political campaigns cannot coordinate with the
527 organizations, which are funded with unregulated "soft"
money and have proved to be an enormous loophole in the new
campaign-finance legislation. Bush aides have said there has
been no coordination with the Swift boat group. "We've
already said we weren't involved in any way in these ads,"
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said last week. "We've
made that clear."

But the Kerry campaign said that claim is put in doubt both
by the Cordier issue and by various news accounts
demonstrating close relationships between the Swift boat
veterans and key Bush advisers. The Kerry campaign also
asserts that a Kerry campaign volunteer picked up a Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth flier at the Bush-Cheney office in
Gainesville, Fla.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

"Terrorist!" She cried

A woman named Annie Jacobsen took an airplane trip a while back, and found herself co-passenger with a group of Syrian musicians. Apparently she harbors an irrational phobia of all things Syrian, for she has made a name for herself claiming these fourteen men were, in fact, terrorists conducting a dry run. She has written a series of "articles" hallmarked by an increasing breathlessness as she details an encounter with her own, personal, "terror in the skies."

Unsure where to begin with this absurd scare mongering, I turn you over to Patrick Smith, who pens the "Ask The Pilot" column for Salon.com. A man affiliated with truth, he has written a series of articles rebutting Jacobsen's paranoid assertions, which seem to be holding steadfast against the twin tides of fact and reality. This is a story illustrating the old saw, "truth is stranger than fiction."

In chonological order:

July 21

July 30

August 6

August 13

August 20

In a word

Garrison Keillor on modern Republicans and the coming election, from an interview conducted by Salon.com.

The conservative loudspeaker system has largely succeeded in convincing the public that liberals are elitists, out of touch with their everyday concerns. But as you observe in your book, the progressive Minnesotans you grew up had humility and charity drummed into them. How did Democrats lose their image, at least in some circles, as the party of the common man and woman?

I don't know any common people personally, though I do know people living on a narrow financial ledge who work terrifically hard to keep from falling off. Young writers, artists, musicians, for sure, but also office workers trying to pay off college loans, own a car, lead a decent life with some music and fun in it, and not to drown in credit card debt. For them, the middle-class life -- the house, the kids, the leisure -- is not so attainable as it was for their folks. You can't swing it on $12.50 an hour. This is a great country for people who earn a quarter-million a year or more, and the others are getting gypped. Democrats were put on earth to speak up for them. We believe in the energy and inventiveness and wild ambition of the young, the marginal, the outsider, the dispossessed -- that's where the genius and soul of this country resides, and we should not crush it underfoot.

Complete interview.

Lawrence sent me this, saying only "It takes a lot to leave me speechless. This did." I concur.

Read on:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A group supporting natural breasts staged a small street protest in Hollywood on Wednesday against a U.S. military policy offering free breast implants to female soldiers.

The group, led by porn star and former California gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey, said the military should spend its money on "bullets, not boobs."

"I think girls should have natural boobs and natural beauty," Carey said after unveiling her own breasts in the protest at an Army recruiting office on Sunset Boulevard.

"Women should be happy with their bodies and what they're blessed with," the 24-year-old star of 37 porn films said.

Her words and deeds drew cheers from a small group of men who had gathered to watch the event. Passing cars sounded their horns in response to a sign that read "Honk if you love natural breasts."

Carey, who wore green camouflage shorts and bikini top, assured all that her own breasts were real.

The protest was organized by porn impresario Mark Kulkis, president of Kick Ass Pictures, the company for whom Carey stars.

It follows recent news stories about the military offering free plastic surgery, including breast enhancements, to soldiers and their families so military doctors can practice their skills.

Kulkis said he opposed military breast implants because they are an unwise expenditure of tax money and because he does not like fake breasts.

"We support our military 100 percent. Part of the reason we're protesting is that we think these tax dollars would be much better spent on essentials (for soldiers)," Kulkis said.

"I'm personally opposed to boob jobs, but more so when they use our tax dollars for them," he said. "It's an issue near and dear to my heart."

Kulkis' porno films come with a promise that none of his female stars have breast implants

He and Carey presented a $500 check to Jennifer Zandstra of Commerce, Texas, who was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army two weeks ago and answered a Kick Ass announcement seeking military women opposed to breast implants.

"Thank you for coming up here and thank you most of all for keeping your real breasts," Kulkis told Zandstra.

Carey invited her to star in her next film, "Mary Carey Rules: No. 6," but Zandstra, now a college student, politely said, "No, thank you."

A military spokesman for the recruiting office where the protest took place said he had no comment.

Full story. :)

Cowboy ISP

My ISP, Cox.net, was kind enough recently to grant me a 1mb/sec download speed increase, at no extra charge. As this is 33% faster than what I already enjoyed, I was much pleased by this development. How often in the modern age will a service company provide more service for the same price?

All was well the first few days. Zippy quick, and all of my perfectly legal downloading went so fast I realized I might be in the market for a terabyte disc array to handle all of the goodies. Joy, happiness, then, alas! Packet loss, and massive latency. Tiny info bits lost to the ether, and little hiccups in the system causing my speedy connection to pause periodically.

Distressed, I picked up the phone and called Cox tech support. The guy I spoke
with was minimally helpful, suggesting my hardware was not up to snuff. I knew this not to be the case, 'cause i'm just nerdy enough to have run a number of tests ruling my end out as the source of the problem. Called back, spoke to someone more polite and more knowledgable, and the consensus was that something was amiss, probably in the lines leading into my house. A tech would be out in a few days.

Cool.

Guy arrives in jeans, a hefty toolbelt, bushy mustache - the works. Could have been a younger version of the trusty old Brawny man. He takes a poke around outside, replaces a connector that was broken, but it doesn't solve the problem. Cox tech guy goes out to his truck to phone home and tell the folks there is a wider problem that needs attention. Problem won't be fixed today. I suspected as much, but they have their procedures, so I play along. I realize the tech guy is doing his job, and at least he isn't lying to me by either blaming my hardware or denying there really is a problem.

Nice guy. Found a wasp's nest under my porch roof, whipped out a can of the nastiest bug spray I've ever seen and blasted the evil little buggers into the hereafter.

Told him he really didn't have to do that, to which he replied:

"I live for this shit."

I call *that* service. :)

Low Tide For "Swfit Boat Veterans For Truth"


The loudest critic of John Kerry''s service in Vietnam, Larry Thurlow, has been justly hoisted on his own petard. (I'm too lazy to surf to dictionary.com to find out what a "petard" is, so for those of you with a few seconds to spare, feel free to fill me in.) Thurlow is part of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, an organization funded and run by two wealthy Republican supporters who aparently are interested in winning elections, not in the truth. The book full of lies and innuendo they have published is doing very well, but is provably false.

Thurlow's own Bronze Star citation directly contradicts his central assertion about Kerry's star - that Kerry's boat was at no time under enemy fire. The logical follow on is that any actions Kerry took would not qualify him for a Bronze Star. Unfortunately for Thurlow the US military is almost as fanatical as the Nazis were about record keeping and paper trails. Being part of a character assassination organization that relies on the same sort of Nazi era propaganda (though more ham handed than Himmler's shop), Thurlow should have known these records would come to the surface. Either he and his "organization" are as stupid as they are mean, or they made a major miscalculation concerning the recorded truth.

I vote for option 1.

Stranger Than Fiction

From Salon.com

Anarchists, please go shopping: The New York Post reports that while New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg refuses to let protesters congregate in New York's central park, he's perfectly happy to let them hang out at the mall.

Faced with the prospect of the convention bringing both unruly demonstrations and a financial bust for New York City, Bloomberg is offering special "Welcome Peaceful Political Activists" discounts to the 200,000 protesters expected to arrive next week.

"'We want to make sure protesters feel welcome here and that they take advantage of all New York City has to offer … It's no fun to protest on an empty stomach,' said the billionaire mayor.

"The discounts -- including deals at certain hotels, restaurants, museums and stores -- are available to anyone who picks up a button at NYC & Co. or visits its Web site, nycvisit.com. Even anarchists can enjoy saving money as they seek to scuttle America's capitalist system, the mayor admitted.

"'They would still get the discount, even if they're an anarchist,' said the mayor."

Charley's Hammer

Hurricane Charley dropped the hammer on central Florida, killing 17 people and causing fantastic destruction. While not the "nightmare scenario" as one commentator characterized the storm, it did roar through heavily populated areas. In the aftermath, the anger I expressed below has intensified. The pictures coming out of the damage zone are awful - smashed houses, flipped cars, uprooted trees, the whole nine yards.

So now the sensationalist television media, already engaged in a self-masturbatory orgy with the fraudulent reporting of the storm's strength, has plenty of video to feed their absurd screen graphics and faux-sympathetic desk anchors (dead weights, all). In America, even after surviving a deadly hurricane, one is still nonexistent until the TV cameras arrive to interview stunned people against a back drop of their life's wreckage. While these devastated people grapple with the overwhelming reality of losing all of their wordly possessions, thigh-rubbing "news personalities" suck up their bewildered pain.

I understand the exploitative TV side of the equation, but I'll likely never understand the victim's participation.

Blown Hurricane Coverage

Media sensationalism runs rampant again tonight, this time surrounding the reporting of Hurricane Charley. Charley was a Category 4 storm as it came on shore in Florida, but weakened as it raced across the central part of the state. Before 8pm central time, the storm had been downgraded to Category 2, and was still weakening, even as it's speed increased.

The only station to get it right was The Weather Channel, and one would hope they could.

All of the CableSpews channels were still reporting it as a Category 4 storm with winds up to 155mph. Sounds scary, right? I switched to the Weather Channel at that precise moment, to discover that Charley was now listed as a Category 2 storm as it approached Orlando. A Category 2 storm has sustained winds as high as 110mph. Charley actually had winds of 90 gusting to just over a huindred, making it a Category 1. Being properly cautious, the National Hurricane Center had not yet downgraded the storm officially.

Imagine you are in or around Orlando, the storm bearing down on you. Turn on CNN or MSNBC to find out whether you live or die, and hear that a Category 4 hurricane is about to land on your ass.

"150 mph! Holy Shit!"

If you're in a less than sturdy structure, you might hop into your car and make a run for it. Winds of the correct speed will still get you killed in a car - 90mph is nothing to sneeze at. Thing is, you get the true report of the lower wind speed, you probably decide to stay indoors, scared, but not fucking terrified. At the time of this writing, the only two deaths attributable to the storm were traffic deaths.

To call this sort of reporting irresponsible doesn't even begin to describe the enormity of it. Were I watching TV and in the path of the oncoming storm, I've now seen the horrendous damage the storm did when it was stronger, and from what I'm hearing, that level of destruction is almost on top of me.

But it isn't. Not to belittle a hurricane of any strength - I've been through one of its Pacific counterparts when it too was weakeneing, and it made for a veryt long, anxious night - but the difference between winds approaching 100 mph and those nearing 155 is enormous. Here in Oklahoma it is not unusual for powerful storm systems to create straight line winds of 80-100 mph, and windows can be blown out, mobile homes damaged, roof shingles blown away. At 155, found here only in tornados, houses collapse, trains are blown over, cars flipped, and so on.

You get the idea. It is fear mongering of the worst kind; irresponsible, reckless, and ultimately dangerous as panicked people make decisions based on false information. The 24 hour news cycle as represented by MSNBC, CNN, and FOx is already an abuse of the airwaves (or cablewaves, as it were), but this is either gross incompetence, or a cynical ploy for ratings. Either way, it is beyond the pale, and rapidly becoming the norm.

Across The Border

Some months ago, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty testified in front of a Senate panel about the artificially high price of many popular prescription drugs and the effect it was having on his state's citizens. Pawlenty, a Republican, concluded that a change was necessary in order for Americans to be able to reasonably obtain the medications they need. To that effect, he told the panel that Minnesota was investigating pharmacies in Canada that the state would then authorize as safe. Information about purchasing drugs was made available on the states' web site.

The FDA howled about safety issues, a canard trotted out whenever any official in government high or low advocates the purchase of prescription drugs from Canada. As yet, they cannot provide information on a single case where ordering the lower priced drugs from up north has resulted in injury or death. On its web site, Minnesota has included this legal and safety information.

I buy my anti-convulsive meds from one of those pharmacies. The information was provided to me by an insurance consultant who is contracted by my wife's employer. Every purchase went off without a hitch, and cost me about 20% of the going price here in the US. A further balloon popping concept is this: my drug was not developed by the American pharmaceutical industry, and is not manufactured here. It was a drug developed in France and imported to the US. In Canada, a monthly supply costs me about $167.00 plus shipping. In my home country, the richest in human history, that same drug costs me around $800.

A delicious irony appeared in a Washington Post story this morning. The DC City web site now provides a link to the Minnesota portal that leads directly to purchase information from Canadian pharmacies. The FDA is very cross with the DC government, more so because DC government is subject to more restrictions and oversight from its federal masters than is any other city government in the country. That those same federal masters are located within that city adds a bit of sting to that particular slap.

Once again, FDA has cited "safety concerns." An important note about the repeated mention of safety concerns. The FDA never uses that phrase in direct conjunction with any mention of Canadian pharmacies, only those located in "other countries." It is a deft bit of deceit, for the FDA can honestly say that drug scams have been run out of shady pharmacies located in countries all over the world, many of them incapable of enforcing much in the way of safety standards for any drugs, let alone those being transported by mail. Not once, that I can find in print, has the FDA ever directly linked its "safety concerns" with Canada, doing so only by implication.

Given how the FDA has morphed into a federal lobby for the awesomely profitable pharmaceutical industry, it comes as no surprise that they will do all they can to protect its profits.

Government in (in)action.

Be careful what you pledge to do.

Presidential candidate John Kerry doesn't realize it, but he may have just given away huge chunks of the land comprising our United States.

John Kerry pledged at an intertribal Indian powwow Sunday evening to honor treaties and consult on national issues like health care.

"When I take the oath of office as president of the United States," he told an estimated 5,000 people at Red Rock State Park, "I will uphold the law of the land, and that includes treaties and the special relationship that exists between the United States and the Indian nations."

If Kerry intended to literally do what he suggests in that quote, he better break out a great big map of the US. If all of the treaties legally written and agreed to by both parties were enforced, a lot of we Americans would find ourselves living in other countries. A series of treaties enacted between tribes and Congress during the 1800s were later unilaterally altered by our government to suit its needs. Given the tribes were all regarded early in the history of our republic as possessing sovereignty, the US could not legally alter treaties without the consent of the other parties, which it failed to seek.

In other words, if you live anywhere in the larger central part of the US, strictly speaking, you do not own the land upon which you live. The town or city you live in is no longer within the borders of the Untied States, and US law does not apply to you. Your taxes will now go to the tribes, and tribal custom will determine whther or not you even get a say what happens to your tax dollars. You could be pushed off your land without compensation, rounded up and put into camps, or force marched a coule of thousand miles to the least productive land and told to get farming or starve.

Sound familiar?

Obviously, Kerry meant to indicate he is sensitive to issues affecting Native America, but were he better versed in those issues, he might have spoken a wee bit more carefully. :)

O'Reilly Rules!

Bill O'Reilly likens himself a simple, blue collar, working man who just happens to be a multi - millionaire. Ol' Bill got his TV start on that hard hitting bastion of television journalism The Current Affair. Maury Povich made himself famous on that show as well, so famous he was swallowed up by the quicksand of daytime blabfest TV. I could write an entire book about O'Reilly's obnxious, lying ways, but Al Franken took care of that for me.

No, my interest in O'Reilly goes beyond the chronic, lying-as-a-matter-of-course and straight into his sanctimonius, pus filled heart.

Read this article about Bill's attack on Jeremy Glick, whose father was killed in Manhattan September 11, then watch the video referenced at the top of the page, which includes scenes from Glick's one and only appearance on the O'Reilly Factor. Note Bill's references to Glick's father.

I once had the passing thought that Franken should maybe give it a rest with the O'Reilly taunting. Now I understand why he does it.

Swift boats sinking

Details on the Swift Boat vet who retracted the comments he made in the infamous anti-Kerry ad.

Terror Alertitus.

I followed a link from Salon, and wound up here.

From the Salon article:

The war on...falling approval rates?

A new chart making its way around the blogosphere is fueling fresh conspiracy theories about the Bush administration's terror warnings. The chart, which plots Bush's approval ratings vs. time and marks when the administration issued terror warnings, looks pretty accurate -- the bloggers who put it together did an exhaustive amount of research and generally used reliable polls.

The bloggers' conclusion:

"There are few things that are quite evident from the chart:

"-Whenever his ratings dip, there's a new terror alert.

"-Every terror alert is followed by a slight uptick of Bush approval ratings.

"-As we approach the 2004 elections, the number and frequency of terror alerts keeps growing, to the point that they collapse in the graphic. At the same time, Bush ratings are lower than ever."

Also check out the excellent timeline (which started on Table Talk on Salon) put together by bloggers Biltud and Julius Civitatus.

This isn't exactly news - I'd read elsewhere a series of articles (wish I could remember where), about the ever smaller bumps Shrub was getting from events like September 11, the invasion of Iraq, and then the capture of Saddam. The above article and chart include those events, but tellingly adds in all of the terror alerts.

Fascinating stuff. :)

Death By Olympics

I have four cats. All of them were rescues, taken in by people who can't bear to have them taken off to already overloaded city and county animal shelters where the chances of adoption are exceedingly small. The window for a kind hearted soul to show up and take these abandoned or homeless pets into their lives is very brief, and the outcome for those not adopted is certain and relentless.

That in mind, there are two stories I've encountered this morning that really put a crimp in my head. The first is about the city of Athens, site of the 2004 summer Olympics. Athens has experienced a wide range of problems getting prepared for the thousands of people who will descend upon their city. In addition to finishing the constructon of the many facilities related to the Olympics, Athens has been cleaning up the city to put on a good face for their upcoming international debut.

To that end, they are committing mass killings of animals. Homeless dogs are being poisoned to death in large numbers to get them off the street before the visitors arrive. In addition to the story and gruesome pictures, there is also a video. The pictures are tough and the video quite graphic, so hold on tight.

Story.

Video.

As if that weren't enough, I turn my attention to the Washington Post, part of my daily indigestion of news and politics. There, on the front page, I find this:

Death By Circus

We are told the Shrub doesn't read newspapers, or much of anything else. Sometimes, I think he might actually be on to something.

Swift Liars

"Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," an organization allegedly formed to rebut Senator John Kerry's war record, have launched a television ad campaign to make wingnuts everywhere very very proud. In fact, I am proud of them, for taking that courageous step from ordinary negative political advertising to outright slander.

This organization claims to represent a large, unspecified number of Vietnam vets who dispute the circumstances under which Kerry earned his purple hearts and silver star. Some have signed affadavits to that effect. Not one of them ever served on a boat with Kerry, but claim to have better information about Kerry's actions and injuries than his own crew or the United States Navy. This was the group that demanded Kerry release all of his service and wartime medical records, which he did.

Nothing contained in those records in any way contradicted Kerry's public descriptions of his service.

Stranger still, George Elliott, featured prominently in the ad, filed a 1969 report praising Kerry for keeping cool under fire. He also publicly supported his Senate campaign in 1996. He recently recanted his comments about Kerry's service as seen in the advertisement, saying that signing the affadavit was "a mistake." Later still, in this ever unfolding drama, members of his family were quoted as saying that George "stood by the ad."

We shall see.

The ad itself is basically a slick piece of character assassination, of the type employed by the Shrubites on the 2000 primary campaigns against Senator McCain, also a Vietnam vet. McCain has criticized the use of such ads, no doubt stung still by 2000, and the assault on a fellow military man's service record.

The "swift boat vets" organization is heavily funded by a few big Republican donors with strong ties to the current governor of Texas, a Shrub family friend. As the wisdom goes, "follow the money," and in this case, you don't have to travel very far at all.

Joe Conason wrote several articles on the swift liars.

Article

Article

Article

If you are like me, and enjoy a good ruberneck, no matter how gruesome, I'v eposted the video here. I'll keep it up as long as my ISP will allow.

Swift Boat Ad

Run Alan, run!

Alan Keyes has won the lottery for the Illinios Republican Senate nomination. Following a series of gaffes that included a previous candidate's divorce records being released, casting him in the role of kinky, perverted husband, and a famous football coach turning the state party down, the Republicans have found their man.

Keyes is most famous for being that fairly rare animal: an African-American conservative. He has run for national office before, including president, but has yet to win an election.

Keyes is most recognizable to me for his part in an episode of Michael Moore's old television series, TV Nation. In the run up to the 2000 election, Moore wnt about with a truck full of kids moshing to Rage Against The Machine's "Guerilla Radio." Moore promised to endorse the first candiate willing to hop into the mobile pit. Everyone turned him down, probably after realizing the chorus to the song goes like this:

Lights out!
Guerilla radio!
Turn that shit up!

The intrepid Keyes, never one to ignore any chance of public exposure, agreed, climbed into the truck, and was nearly trampled by the moshing. He looked like an idiot dressed in his suit, but I had to give him a small salute for bravery under fire. Moore did provide Keyes an endorsement, but apparently it wasn't enough to get him the Republican nomination.

Read the Talking Points Memo post on Keyes.

Swamp Music

Katherine Harris, the infamous Flordia elections official who's day job it was to certify the state's results in the 2000 election while moonlighting as a Bush campaign chair, possesses amazing national security credentials.

Officials in Indiana and Washington, D.C., said they are dumbfounded by a statement U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris made about a terrorist plot to blow up a power grid in Indiana.

In making the statement during a speech to 600 people Monday night in Venice, Harris either shared a closely held secret or passed along second-hand information as fact.

A staff member of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which oversees the nation's intelligence operations, said he had heard of no such plot.

And Indiana officials in the county where the power grid is located were at a loss to explain where the information originated.

"As the sheriff of this county, I would certainly be aware of such a threat," Hamilton County Sheriff Doug Carter said. "I have no information to corroborate any of that."

In an interview Tuesday, Harris would not reveal the name of the mayor who told her about the threat or provide further details.

She said in the speech that a man of Middle Eastern heritage had been arrested in the plot and that explosives were found in his home in Carmel, a suburb north of Indianapolis.

Harris, a Republican from Longboat Key who is running for re-election, said the case was an example of the nation's success in fighting terrorism.

Carmel Mayor James Brainard and a spokesman for Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan said they had no knowledge of such a plot. Brainard said he had never spoken to Harris.

Why I have to vote for Shrub

In the lexicon of Bushisms it may one day make it to the top of the pile.

The American president added to his reputation as a gaffe-prone public speaker yesterday by declaring that the White House was doing everything it could to harm the United States.

Although many an opponent may agree with the sentiment, the statement was made in all seriousness at the signing ceremony for a $417bn defence spending bill.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," George Bush told an audience of military brass and Pentagon chiefs. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

The Associated Press reported that there appeared to be no reaction from the audience.

The latest gaffe will add to anti-Bush paraphernalia hunters' collections of errors, mistakes and back-firing jokes. These included the declaration that "more and more of our imports come from overseas", and the observation that "it's clearly a budget; it's got a lot of numbers in it".

The latest muddle followed another Bush absurdity on Wednesday, when he was pictured trying to eat an ear of raw sweetcorn given to him by a farmer in Iowa.

But Mr Bush's idiosyncrasies are not necessarily an electoral burden. Some believe his folksy delivery and verbal solecisms play well with ordinary Americans wary of slick rhetoric and gilded vocabulary.

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said his master's latest slip "just shows even the most straightforward and plain-spoken people misspeak."

Be honest with yourself: Is there any way we can live without this? It's like having a walking, nationally televised primer for kids on how not to speak English.

Nobody But Us Chickens

News of the investigation into classified documents and former National Security advisor Sandy Berger became big news in recent weeks when the existence of a seven month inquiry was leaked to the press. It seemed awfully fishy to have this happen on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, but I might be paranoid.

On the flip side, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama has been under investigation by the Jutice Department for two years concerning a confirmed leak of several classified documents directly to the press. The Justice Department finally chose not to pusue the matter, instead turning it over the Senate Ethics Committee. This is akin to charging the fox to investigate missing chickens in the hen house.

The hue and cry over Berger's investigation has been very loud, though the documents in question were never leaked to the press or anyone else for that matter. The usual wingnut howlers have managed to miss the story on Republican Shelby, even in the face of a deliberate leak of classified information.

Washington Post has the most detailed story on Shelby.

Federal investigators concluded that Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) divulged classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, according to sources familiar with the probe.

Specifically, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron confirmed to FBI investigators that Shelby verbally divulged the information to him during a June 19, 2002, interview, minutes after Shelby's committee had been given the information in a classified briefing, according to the sources, who declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case.

Cameron did not air the material. Moments after Shelby spoke with Cameron, he met with CNN reporter Dana Bash, and about half an hour after that, CNN broadcast the material, the sources said. CNN cited "two congressional sources" in its report.

The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office pursued the case, and a grand jury was empaneled, but nobody has been charged with any crime. Last month it was revealed that the Justice Department had decided to forgo a criminal prosecution, at least for now, and turned the matter over to the Senate Ethics Committee.

The Justice Department declined to comment on why it was no longer pursuing the matter criminally. The Senate ethics panel also declined to comment on its investigation.

Another take on it from The Register.

Where's the cash?

No joke, and no surprise. Remember all of that oil money that was supposed to appear and foot the cost of the Iraqi reconstruction? Remember how the majority of it was to be handed out to Iraqi companies participating in the rebuilding of their own country?

Well well well, turns out $1.9 billion of $2.26 billion went to American firms, with little or no oversight. The CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) administered the money and the awarding of contracts, and broke it's own rules multiple times during the contracting process. Guess who the major recipient was?

Tell me if this refrain sounds all too familiar:

Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., a subsidiary of Halliburton, was paid $1.66 billion from the Iraqi money, primarily to cover the cost of importing fuel from Kuwait. The job was tacked on to a no-bid contract that was the subject of several investigations after allegations surfaced that a subcontractor for Houston-based KBR overcharged by as much as $61 million for the fuel.

The really sad part of this is the flight of cash out of the country. Oil revenues were intended to help build what had been destroyed, including a new economy. Taking huge sums of money generated by the processing and sale of Iraqi oil and moving it out of the country damages its nascent economy.

Full story is here, and though registration is required, it's worth it. The Post has been out in front on a number of these and similar stories.

Oranxiety

Unwittingly, I've fallen into fashion. I'm one for muted colors and comfortable fabrics, jeans and slip on Land's End shoes (only 24 smackeroos), a watch and wedidng ring as jewelry. I am vaguely aware of what is or isn't fashionable at any given time, but would fail even the easiest quiz.

So imagine my utter surprise when the lovely header color I chose for my modest rant page turned out to match the Homefries Security Department's choice of Fear Color for this week! It's a cross between blood red and toxic yellow, and approximates orange, though slightly on the dark side. Unfortunately, I remain only a fashionista wannabe, as the new hue doesn't apply to far off Oklahoma. No great loss; the locals would have been howling for a return to good ole Sooner Red.

Reading the newspapers has further disabused me of the fleeting notion that I matched the seaons' coteur, for it turns out to be over three years old. My disappointment knows no bounds. For a brief, glorious moment, I was on the catwalk, preening in my fonts and logo. Alas!

Reagan Redux, Part 97.

As I have developed some weird obsession with Ron Reagan and his politcal coming out party, I offer this link to an article young Ron has written about the Bush administration.

The Case Against George W. Bush

Bush apologists can smilingly excuse his malopropisms and vagueness as the plainspokenness of a man of action, but watching Bush flounder when attempting to communicate extemporaneously, one is left with the impression that he is ineloquent not because he can't speak but because he doesn't bother to think.

Thanks to my brother in law for the heads up.

A Teresa Heinz Kerry sighting:

From the Washington Post:

A week ago she told a writer from a Pittsburgh newspaper to "shove it," and on Monday night the never-bashful Teresa Heinz Kerry offered up another attention-getting line, saying four more years of the Bush presidency would be "hell" for the country.

Heinz Kerry was introducing her husband, John F. Kerry, at a huge outdoor rally here when a group of Bush supporters, armed with a megaphone, started chanting from a distance, "Four more years! Four more years!" Without hesitating, Heinz Kerry responded, "They want four more years of hell."

The candidate threw back his head with a laugh, and the partisan, pro-Kerry crowd roared its approval, chanting, "Three more months, three more months," with Heinz Kerry joining in. When it was his turn to speak, Kerry said of his wife, "She speaks her mind, and she speaks the truth -- and she's pretty quick on her feet, too."

The Perils Of Deconstruction

Michael Moore is a real pain in the ass. The more I see and hear him in interviews on TV, the more irritated I become. The same things come out of his mouth in that reedy voice and flat Michigan twang, just a step away from a Dakota y'betcha. I find the man himself nearly insufferable.

He is a very good film maker, however, talented and witty. He has a loving eye for the absurdities to be unearthed beneath the most ordinary, everyday events. Things we often take for granted, he turns upside down.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is such a film; sharp, funny, terrifiying, and maddening all at once. It uses facts to draw conclusions, some of them stretched perhaps a little thin, but logically extended from the basis he sets out. I found little confusion apparent between stated facts and his own conclusions or suggestions, but I also encountered very few surprises either. Much of what can be found in the film had already been written about extensively in the more left press, some of it long before Moore thought to make this movie.

I also find amusing the incredible lengths the conservative right will go to attempt to utterly discredit Moore and his film. Before the movie was even released, the two main stories about it were:

1. Disney dropped distribution of the film because they felt it was too political or not a money maker. Take your pick, both appeared in the press.

2. Conservative commentators who had not seen the film began a campaign to discredit the film on the facts...even though they hadn't seen the film. Scott McLellan, White House Press Secretary railed against the film in the White House press room, until one reporter, throwing off his sheepskin, asked McLellan directly if he had seen the movie.

Answer?

"No."

And so on. By the time the film was released into theaters, anti-Moore projects had sprung up all over the Internet, and word was there was a film to be made entitled "Michael Moore Hates America." A stupid idea, but I don't doubt it will come to pass. More infuriating are the "factual detractors" who claim to have completely deconstructed the film and listed out, in neutral observational fashion, factual errors made in the movie.

One such site can be found here.

The author of the site seems to go out of his way to declare his neutrality, claiming only to deal with what he terms "facts." I read through about half the site, then skipped about, finding plenty of editorial comments about both Moore and the film, but little factual deconstruction.

We can divide the film into three major parts. The first part (Bush, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan) is so permeated with lies that most of the scenes amount to lies. The second, shortest part involves domestic issues and the USA PATRIOT Act. So far, I've identified only one clear falsehood in this segment (Rep. Porter Goss's toll-free number). So this part, at least arguably, presents useful information. The third part, on Iraq, has several outright falsehoods--such as the Saddam regime's murder of Americans, and the regime's connection with al Qaeda. Other scenes in the third part--such as Iraqi casualties, interviews with American soldiers, and the material on bereaved mother Lila Lipscomb--are not blatant lies; but the information presented is so extremely one-sided (the only Iraqi casualties are innocents, nobody in Iraq is grateful for liberation, all the American soldiers are disillusioned, except for the sadists) that the overall picture of the Iraq War is false.

Note the editorial content right off the bat. The part of the film dealing with Afghanistan is "so permeated with lies that most of the scenes amount to lies."

Next, we have the most telling of all statements: "The third part, on Iraq, has several outright falsehoods--such as the Saddam regime's murder of Americans, and the regime's connection with al Qaeda."

The author asserts here that Moore is lying about the link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Since Moore has pointed out, correctly, that there is no established l;ink between the two, our intrepid deconstructionist is implying, quite plainly, such a relationship existed. So far, our truth teller is lying through his html teeth.

There is more, much more, including a condemnation of Moore for not supporting the war, and for completely lying about the conduct of the war, casting it in a light not favored by the administration. Further, his sources are to be doubted. Two of the main references are Christopher Hitchens and Michael Isikoff. The former was once a thorn in the side of the right who went along with the Bush lies about Iraq because he hated Saddam Hussein and has been a champiopn of the opressed Kurdish people. A fine motivation for going to war, but listening to him gleefully extoll the virtues of lying to get the job done is nauseating. Note that I was once a great admirer of Hitchens, back when he told devastating truths about politicians and politics, regardless of the party.

Isikoff is a special case. He gained reknown for writing article after article about the Clinton Whitewater affair, wherein it is alleged not only that Bill and Hillary made scads of money but that they may have murdered someone(s) in the process. Isikoff relished centering his reports around Drudgian "facts" and other rumors, long after the Clintons had been exonerated of any wrong doing. He, like Hitchens, is cited over and over. Unlike Hitchens, an editorial writer, Issikoff is supposed to be a reporter. He is anything but.

Next up is the Washington Times, a proudly conservative rag; Media Research Center, Weekly Standard, and the author's own employer, William F. Buckley's prize child, The National Review Online (online version of the print mag). Amazing how a man who writes for a very conservative magazine and cites plenty of sources whose adherence to truth is questionable can declare he has pointed out factual innaccuracies in Moore's film. He further misconstrues other sources, and leaves out important parts to bolster his case.

Now this, under the heading "Deceit 59," the last one on the endless page:

Do the many falsehoods and misrepresentations of Fahrenheit 9/11 suggest a film producer who just makes careless mistakes? Or does a man who calls Americans "possibly the dumbest people on the planet" believe that his audience will be too dumb to tell when he is tricking them? Viewers will have to decide for themselves whether the extremist and extremely deceptive Fahrenheit 9/11 is a conscientious work of patriotic dissent, or the cynical propaganda of a man who gives wartime aid to America?s murderous enemies, and who accepts their aid in return.

This can only be interpreted as an opinion on Moore's patriotism, not as a matter of lying or deceit. And bear in mind that sentence follows several paragrphs of ranting about how Moore gives aid and comfort to terrorists. Ludicrous. This man, Dave Kopel, has set out to disguise his own agenda against Moore and Farenheit 9/11 beneath a thin veneer of so-called "research" into the accuracy of facts presented in the film. I'd almost believe he did it in good faith but for the poor sources he employs, and this Ann Coulterish gem:

His latest book, Dude, Where's My Country, is dedicated to the memory of Rachel Corrie, an American who traveled to Israel, burned an American flag for some Palestinian children, and served as an activist for a terrorist support group called the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The ISM which is run by the Palestinian Communist Party and which advocates the extermination of the state of Israel. She died trying to prevent an Israeli bulldozer from removing some shrubbery which was thought to cover tunnels used by terrorist bombers to enter Israel. Thus Moore dedicated his book to someone who deliberately sought to assist the terrorist murder of civilians in Israel.

Anyone who knows anything at all about Rachel Corrie will be horrified by this defamation of the dead. Corrie was a young peace activist who put her beliefs to the test, travelling to the occupied territories to put her body between the Israeli Army and Palestinian homes slated for destruction in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza strip. She was killed by a bulldozer, but not as Kopel alleges, 'preventing the removal of shrubbery, thought to hide tunnels used by terrorist bombers.' Corrie was young and perhaps foolish, but brave enough to put herself on the line, and she paid with her life. The identifiable Israeli soldier reponsible for her death has not been charged. Slandering her to smear Moore is beyond disgusting, especially using a story created by the Israeli Army to defuse the killing of an American citizen.

I've left the links Kopel uses intact, to display his sources; - one his own article; one an article tying the ISM with the communist party that has since been heavily edited and corrected (the sfgate link); and four of them from a rag run by David Horowitz, infamous darling intellectual of the far right. Horowitz is an ardent supporter of Israel and the extreme viewpoint painting all Palestinians as terrorists and collaborators. If Kopel were to check this story out more carefully, instead of relying on the slanderous statements of a right wingnut author, he might discover at least a few truths, sorrowfully lacking in his screed.

Those sorts of wild "facts" make it impossible to tell where, if anywhere, Kopel tells the truth. That is too bad, because it is very possible Moore fudged in some places, though the line between fact and supposition or conclusion can be hard to pin down. Kopel does nothing but further muddy the waters... or is that his very intent?

Ok, so I've figured a way to repost everything from the other site, one post at a time, but at least they will appear in proper order.

They will appear in reverse order, newest to oldest, with the proper day/date headers.

I know little about HTML, and my head hurts. :)