One of the funniest things is seeing some schmuck rev up a motorcycle really loud, even though the guy isn't trying to go any faster. He may think he is letting the world know who macho he is, but the real message being sent is quite different. When people hear a really loud motorcycle, the natural and logical conclusion is that the owner is overcompensating for an extremely small penis.

Of course, National Rifle Association stickers are even worse, especially the ones that say that no one will ever take the owner's gun away. NRA stickers scream “man with tiny penis who cannot get an erection without Viagra or some other drug.”

And, gun magazines are hysterical. Macho-acting man/boys hold guns the way that tops hold their schlongs in gay porno movies. Guns as phallic symbols and castration anxieties have huge psychological influences over gun nuts. I think the main reason this aspect of the firearm fanatics doesn't get much press is that people are afraid of getting shot by an impotent gun owner with a penis so small he has trouble finding it.

The Bush regime's latest talking point, that leaving Iraq would turn the country over to “enemies,” reveals more than what they would like.

The main Shi'ite parties are anti-American parties tied to the Shia regime in Iran. Chalabi, the Bush regime's main point man in Iraq, is a well-known Iranian spy. The Shias are letting US troops do battlefield combat with their Sunni enemies while their police forces are disappearing Sunni civilians in much the way that Latin American dictatorships supported by the Reagan Administration did.

The Bush regime has already handed Iraq over to enemies of the US. In fact, they have converted the entire country into enemies of the US. The Bush people are tyring to set conditions where we never can leave Iraq, because there aren't any US-friendly Iraqis left to turn over the country to.

So, what is Bush's cabal really worried about? If they pull our troops out of Iraq, Halliburton and other GOP cronies will lose their gravy train. The last thing the Bush regime wants is for Iraqis getting jobs rebuilding their country. They would rather see their cronies bill the US government endlessly while producing little or nothing of any value for the Iraqi people.

NBC's Medium features bad writing, horrible acting, and a goofy premise. But, that doesn't stop some people from watching it. However, the show could have a damaging effect if viewers cannot distinguish television from reality.

Given the overly superstitious nature of our society, NBC has a responsibility to run a disclaimer similar to the following:

This show is a fantasy. In real life, psychic powers do not exist. “Mediums” do not help police solve crimes. Do not be taken in by “mediums” pretending that they can help you communicate with the dead.

The Skeptic's Dictionary has an excellent article on mediums.

Very little that Republican politicians do could shock me, but the latest Bill Frist scandal is outrageous. It turns out a so-called AIDS charity, “World of Hope Inc.,” started by Frist has become a slush fund for Frist's cronies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051217/ap_on_go_co/frist_charity

A particularly damaging passage from the article:

The rest of the money went to overhead. That included $456,125 in consulting fees to two firms run by Frist's longtime political fundraiser, Linus Catignani. One is jointly run by Linda Bond, the wife of Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo.

Frist is already facing allegations of insider trading. One has to wonder how much else is going on the leader of Senate Republicans.

Will Log Cabin demand Frist's resignation from the Senate or are they happy that he is looting money for people with AIDS?

(with apologies to no one)

Verse 1:
It's the most horrible time of the year.
With families fighting and siblings yelling that
“His toy cost more!”
It's the most annoying time of the year.

Verse 2:
It's the crap-crapiest time of the year.
With O'Reilly yapping and parents a-snapping,
When mobs hit the mall,
It's the crud-crudiest time of the year.

Bridge:
There'll be wrists that get slashed up, some rivers for drowning,
and some will have pills in big gulps.
There'll be hospital visits and tragic demises,
and some will slide off of the road.

Verse3:
It's the most horrible time of the year.
There'll by panic shopping, and jaws will be dropping,
when in-laws are near.
It's most depressing time of the year.

I've never been much of a fan of her music, but I always have thought that Barbra Streisand is a good person. Recent events have shown how good of a person she can be.

Ms. Streisand has made the news by cancelling her subscription to the Los Angeles Times, in response to the firing of liberal, anti-war columnist Robert Scheer. As previously discussed here, the firing was the result of Times publisher Jack Johnson's ire over Scheer's columns criticizing Bush's war in Iraq.

She points out that Scheer's replacement, Jonah Goldberg, cannot “be trusted to provide me with accurate, unbiased news and forthright opinions.” As readers of this rightist columnist know, his pieces generally involve disjointed regurgitations of GOP talking points. It would be difficult to know what, if anything, Goldberg really stands for, given his utter lack of originality.

This would be a good time to remind people to Contact the L.A. Times and demand that Robert Scheer be rehired.

Every year, some people bemoan that others aren't living up to the original meaning of Christmas. If only they knew what that original meaning actually was.

Christmas originally was the Saturnalia, a Roman Solstice celebration which involved an orgy of sex, wine, and food.

If you want to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, eat like a pig; get drunk; go to an orgy; and celebrate a fertility goddess.

Some fundamentalist Christians have found out about this. Enjoy a cute rant by a fundie who doesn't want other fundies to celebrate Christmas.

http://www.ynca.com/christmas.htm

Rightist Connecticut Senator and phony Democrat, Joseph Lieberman, has shown an even greater willingness to lick the boots of the Bush regime, once again attacking Democrats who are speaking out against Bush's illegal and unAmerican war in Iraq.

Anyone who is paying attention to what is going on in Iraq knows that the war in helping Al Queda's terrorist recruitment efforts enormously. In an excellent Alternet article, Fawaz A. Gerges points out something terribly important:

Iraq is slowly and gradually replacing other theaters as a forward base for the new jihad. Today, a large concentration of active jihadis exists in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or Saudi Arabia. According to a 2005 report by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank: "The al-Qa'ida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq." This report took a year to produce and includes the analysis of 1000 U.S. and foreign specialists, and represents the conclusion of American intelligence, which cannot be dismissed as politically and ideologically biased and antiwar.

In his desperation to pander to the Bush regime, Lieberman is helping our nation's greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden. In the process, he is furthering the political agenda of the people who rammed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It's time for Lieberman to retire. He has nothing to offer our country.

Republicans are always babbling on about how they supposedly support our troops. In defending herself after being criticized for her unpatriotic comments on the House floor, Jean Schmidt claimed that she supports our troops, though no one who genuinely supports our servicemembers wants them to die for corrupt Bush Regime cronies like Halliburton, Big Oil, and the Religious Right.

Schmidt's supposed support for the military already was on shaky ground. Now, we have learned that she lied about what one Marine said in order to make a false accusation against another Marine that is serving in Congress. This person just is not fit to hold public office. Tell Schmidt to resign in disgrace and stop betraying our troops and our country.

Jean Schmidt’s Contact Information

Washington, D.C. Office
(202) 225-3164

Cincinnati Office
(513)791-0381
Fax: 513-791-1696

Portsmouth Office
(740)354-1440

Campaign Office
Phone: (513) 575-0840
Fax: (513) 575-1201
Joe Braun, Campaign Manager (Joe@JeanSchmidt.com)

The Los Angeles Times seems determined to join the rest of the corporate media as a right-wing activist endeavor. They have pretty much dropped doing investigative reporting on the GOP, despite how massively corrupt Bush, the Republican Congress, and Schwarzenegger are.

Now, the paper has canned Bob Scheer, the most talented columnist the LA Times has ever produced. Scheer's work appeared in the paper for 30 years, starting as a reporter. Publisher Jeff Johnson is widely known to be angry about Scheer's columns criticizing the quagmire in Iraq and calling for withdrawal of US troops. It's a shame that the Times has fired its best columnist merely because he is patriotic enough to oppose Bush's unAmerican and illegal war in Iraq.

The paper even tried to enhance its GOP credentials through the required mendacity, in this case by lying about the number of readers who protested Scheer's firing. I remember when the LA Times was a great paper. It has devolved into a propaganda rag for the GOP without any integrity or journalistic standards whatsoever. In other words, it has joined almost all of the corporate media here in the U.S.

Contact the Los Angeles Times and demand that Scheer be reinstated and that the Times reinstitute journalistic standards rather than acting as a mouthpiece for the GOP.

In a previous post, I mentioned a Christian wrestling federation as well as the pornographic nature of pro-Wrestling for so many bisexual and gay men.

It turns out there is another Talibanist-Christian wrestling federation: “Freedom Championship Wrestling.” Based in the Staten Island, their shows are held in a fundie church.

You can learn more about this bit of fundie weirdness at:
http://www.1wrestling.com/columns/chatterbox/default.asp?articleid=11041&page=7
http://www.mediaman.com.au/articles/the_flight.html

There are a few bad photographs of their recent show at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~ringsidehighlights/fcw/show1/fcw-102503-017.htm

Their web site is only a placeholder for now, but it might be worth a few laughs if you check it out in a few months.

I don't know how long this will federation will be around, they share their name with a web site that shows animated matches of wrestling action figures.

The Bush Regime has just announced a settlement with the Archdiocese of Boston that supposedly includes stricter controls on priests but has no criminal penalties for Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston or any of his subordinates.

This is an obvious political payback for support the Roman Catholic Church gave Bush in the 2004 campaign, support that violated that church's tax exempt status. Militant Christian fundamentalists have long used pedophilia to bludgeon the lgbt community, yet Bush, a militant, Christian fundamentalist, is letting pedophiles and their protectors off easy. Why aren't Talibanists like Falwell and Robertson screaming in outrage over this?

The Republicans who supported the "nuclear option" compromise promised to support the judicial filibuster when it is used for extraordinary circumstances.

The nomination of a dangerous, anti-constitution extremist like Alito to the US Supreme Court is an extraordinary circumstance, and the GOP knows this. Yet, two GOP Senators, Mike DeWine and Lindsey Graham, have announced that they will support abolishing the judicial filibuster in the so-called “nuclear option” if Alito is filibustered.

The Democrats who trusted these Republicans were betrayed by cold, calculating, liars.

Progressives waited way too long to fight the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court and then as Chief Justice. It is critical that people stop the nomination of Alito, another dangerous religious extremist. MoveOn has an online petition that people need to sign as quickly as possible.

http://www.moveonpac.org/stopalito/

For more information, the Alliance for Justice has an excellent report on Alito.

http://www.supremecourtwatch.org/AlitoPrelim1031.pdf

The October 29, 2005 New York Times article, “Extension Sought in Canada Lumber Fight,” details a dispute where the Canadian government is pushing for an end to U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber, a dispute where the Bush Administration is delaying the inevitable end of the tariffs.

What is lost in this Business section coverage is the environmental impact. Thanks to NAFTA, prices for lumber will go down, resulting in more trees being cut down in Canada. In addition to generally being bad for the environment, the additional loss of trees will add to global warming.

The Democrats need to find some backbone and call for the repeal of NAFTA. Katrina and other hurricanes this year show that global warming is more important than sucking up to corporate interests.

There is a huge gay underground of guys who use pro-wrestling as gay porn. Dozens of Yahoo groups are dedicated sharing pictures and fantasies about pro-wrestling and wrestlers. Many bi men use pro-wrestling, and real wrestling, as their only outlet for their same sex desires.

That makes a fairly recent effort by militant, Christian fundamentalists to turn everything “Christian” a hoot. There is, or at least was, a little pro-Wrestling promotion called “Ultimate Christian Wrestling” where fans could watch half naked men dominating each other. (The site hasn’t been updated in a while, making me wonder if the thing is still going.)

http://www.ultimatechristianwrestling.com/

If only these fundies knew that some of their fans, including some of their Bible-thumping base, are getting erotically stimulated by what they are doing. The self-righteous Christian fundamentalists sometimes stumble, often with comic results.

Of course, there also should be some moral issues with putting on faked wrestling matches, but that distinction probably is lost on the people doing it too.

Not satisfied with damaging its reputation through its continued employment of faux journalist Judith Miller, the Times continues its relentless propagandizing for the Bush regime.

An article entitled “Foreign Fighters Captured in Iraq Come From 27, Mostly Arab, Lands,” must be terribly embarrassing to it’s author, Dexter Filkins. In it, he goes on about “foreign fighters” captured by the US military, diligently acting as stenographer for Bush regime.

One problem with his article which should be obvious. The author neglects to mention that the vast majority of foreign fighters in Iraq are US troops, forced to fight there due to the Bush regime. This twisted propaganda line is being used to perform the following functions:

1) To make it sound as if any country EXCEPT the US whose citizens are involved in Iraq is meddling with that country’s affairs.

2) To make it sound as if US troops have a legitimate reason to be in Iraq.

3) To lay the political groundwork for potential invasions of Iraq’s neighbors and other Middle Eastern countries.

This is so typical of how “journalists” at the New York Times and so many other corporate media outlets parrot Orwellian Bush regime propaganda rather than reporting in a balanced, reasonable fashion.

I used to listen to that show, but, as of today, I’m tuning out for good. She keeps going on these homophobic tirades where she attacks random Bush regime and other GOP officials for supposedly being gay. Using claims of homosexuality as a smear tactic is vintage Karl Rove behavior.

This goes to show how far the queer community hasn’t come in the Democratic Party and among some on the left. We still are targets for bigotry and derision. And, make no mistake, when someone like Randi Rhodes uses phony homosexuality as something bad to smear political opponents, she is attacking all of us who really are queer.

Of course, Ms. Rhodes isn’t the only partisan Democrat who sees claims about sexual orientation as tactics to try to undermine their political opponents. It is becoming more and more common on message posts by “liberals” and on “progressive talk radio.” It’s really pissing me off.

Now, there is an important distinction between outing homophobic queers to expose hypocrisy and to use homosexuality itself as something bad to demonize people one dislikes. The problems with homophobic closet cases are their disloyalty to other queers and their hypocrisy, not their homosexuality. However, you won’t hear these kind of distinctions during Rhodes’ homophobic tirades.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be outraged at Bush and his cronies. But, taking it out on the queer community is a bunch of Bushshit.

This shows why WBAI is so important. They support queers rather than going on homophobic rants.

It’s no secret that the Bush regime and their cronies want to keep our troops in Iraq forever. They want to control Iraq’s oil, to drive up oil prices (and therefore oil company stock prices), to abuse and kill Muslims, and to send billions to crony contractors such as Halliburton.

However, there is a blowback for corporate interests not feeding directly from the Bush trough. A recent AP story discussed how the war in Iraq is creating anti-Americanism throughout the world, which is costing high-profile American corporations sales and may have similar consequences for small businesses in the near future.

The Iraq trough just isn’t big enough to feed every company in this country. Eventually, corporations hurt by the war will have no choice but to pressure the Bush regime and the GOP to stop this nonsense.

The anti-war movement has laid the political groundwork for withdrawal of American troops from a war that Bush already has lost. When the money people realize that they are getting reduced returns on their investments, the war will be set aside for the cause of profit.

The Washington Post showed how desperate it can be to shill for the Bush Administration and the GOP in it’s Editorial, “The Right Vote.”

Despite Roberts the blatant contempt Roberts has demonstrated for the Constitution and women’s rights throughout his career, the Post acted as if he has some sort of inalienable right to a Supreme Court seat. Even worse is the Post’s lack of concern about Roberts’ blatantly unethical behavior.

As long as women, people of color, and queers will face the brunt of Roberts’ contempt for the Constitution, the Post thinks it is somehow out-of-bounds to oppose it. The Editorial ironically claimed that the actions of the three Democrats who cast cowardly and cynical votes for Roberts actions’ “took guts.” Talk about unintentional comedy.

Even worse, the Post  lied about liberals opposing Roberts, saying:

The liberal groups have made clear that they will oppose any nominee from this administration, regardless of qualifications, temperament or testimony.

This is truly bizarre. Throughout his career, Roberts has behaved as a dangerous fanatic, bent on destroying Constitutional Rights. Roberts has refused to recuse himself on a recent case where the defendants were interviewing him for the very Supreme Court appointment in question. Anyone concerned with women’s rights, constitutional rights, and ethics in government would have no choice but to oppose Roberts.

If the Post were honest, they would acknowledge the fact that the Bush regime wants to pack the courts with dangerous, anti-Constitutional extremists. Sadly, corporate interests and ideology have trumped honest discourse at that paper. It is typical of the corporate media, but it is particularly frustrating when there is so much at stake.

There is a tendancy among some people to think that New York Republicans are somehow better than Republicans elsewhere, but that certainly isn’t the case when it comes to blatant political corruption.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority runs the New York Subway, the Metro North Railway, the Staten Island Railroad, and the Long Island Railroad. The board is appointed by the Governor and the Mayor, both Republicans.

The MTA is getting famous for corrupt bidding processes. When they recently offered property in Manhattan for sale, they chose the bid of the New York Jets, even though there were two higher bidders.

Now, it has been announced that the MTA has chosen to sell its Brooklyn railyard property to Brooklyn arch-enemy Bruce Ratner at less than half of the appraised market value, and the appraisal was done by the MTA. The land will be part of a massive arena/real estate project that will destroy much of the Prospect Heights neighborhood and will get an additional taxpayer subsidy thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, who never met a corporate welfare project he didn’t like.

It gets worse. An arbitrator ruled that the MTA must stop with its extremely dangerous conductorless trains on the L line because the dangerous trains violate the MTA’s contract with the transit union. What does the MTA do? They are simply ingoring the ruling. The MTA is desperate to cut jobs so they can give away more money to GOP corporate cronies. Safety just doesn’t matter to them.

The corruption at the MTA, whose board is appointed entirely by a Republican governor and a Republican mayor is typical of the corruption that permeates the GOP. Whether it is Dick Cheney and Halliburton, Tom DeLay’s campaign dealings, Duke Cunnhingham’s ethics problems, or the Diebold ballot “discrepancies,” the GOP’s lack of ethics is utterly amazing. For a party that moralizes at queers, women, and non-Christians with glee, the Republican Party needs to learn some real moral values.

Questions about Roberts’ integrity have been downplayed by the corporate media, which is determined to promote a partisan, GOP agenda whenever possible. However, those concerns need to be addressed.

- Roberts lied about his membership in the Federalist Society, a rightist hate-group dedicated to overthrowing the constitution and representative government in the United States. It turns out Roberts was an officer in the DC chapter.

- Roberts has refused to turn over his tax records, unlike previous appointees.

- The Bush regime still refuses to turn over critical documents from when Roberts worked for Ken Starr in the Solicitor General’s office, claiming attorney-client privilege, despite the fact that the American people are the clients of the Solicitor General’s office.

- The fact that Roberts ever worked for someone as dishonest and unprofessional as Starr should raise serious questions about whether Roberts has any concept of legal ethics at all.

- Roberts refused to recuse himself on a recent case involving Alberto Gonzales’ torture memo, immediately after being interviewed by Gonzales and Bush about filling a potential Supreme Court vacancy.

Taken separately, these are disturbing enough. Together, they prove that Roberts is unfit to serve in any capacity on the Supreme Court, much less as Chief Justice.

When FEMA put up its initial list of charities, all but one were overtly religious. Originally listed was Pat Robertson’s highly controversial “charity.”

Many freethinkers would prefer to give to organizations without religious affiliation to ensure that the funds are not diverted to religious bureaucracies. Even worse is the thought that funds might be misused Halliburton-style by unscrupulous religious charities. Here are some secular alternatives.

American Humanist Association

Americares

Federation of Southern Cooperatives

Team Rescue

Food Not Bombs

New Orleans Network

Bill O'Reilly's dishonest smear campaign against Sheehan removes any credibility that he might have had before. O'Reilly is free to disagree with what Sheehan is doing, but lying about her to try to intimidate her is unforgivable. She lost her son in the war, and Bill O'Reilly is mocking her loss. In the process, he is mocking the loss of every war mother.

Email Fox "News" at:
foxnewsonline@foxnews.com

The most important and compelling news story to come along in some time is Cindy Sheehan's attempt to confront Bush face-to-face. The military families who have joined her along with other supporters make it even more important.

This story deserves to be on the front page of every New York Newspaper. Contact some NYC papers and let them know what they should do.

AM New York
pcatapano@am-ny.com, jennifer.martin@am-ny.com

metro
mark.moore@metro.us

New York Daily News
news@edit.nydailynews.com

Michael Bloomberg is often described as a “nominal Republican” by corporate media trying to convince those of us who live here to vote for him. Bloomberg often tries to cultivate a moderate image, but his actions tell otherwise. The Mayor’s campaign’s use of the Republican code-phrase “flip-flopper” in recent campaign propaganda shows that the GOP has a monolithic propaganda machine, one which Bloomberg fully endorses and participates in.

Bloomberg may occasionally serve up pro-gay rhetoric, but he has been viciously homophobic in his actions. He has fought legislation in court that would make the city do business with companies ethical enough to have domestic partnership benefits. Far worse, he first vetoed legislation that prevents school bullies from harassing and assaulting queer youth in the public schools. When the City Council overrode his veto, Bloomberg demonstrated what a fanatical bigot he is by refusing to follow the law. Adding homophobic insult to homophobic injury, Bloomberg still refuses to grant permits for counter-protests for people opposed to the homophobic hate-march masquerading itself as a St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Bloomberg’s budget priorities have been pure Bush. It’s been all about tax breaks for the wealthy and enormous subsidies for corporations. We have seen this with hugely subsidized stadium deals, subsidies that will cut city services and raise fares for people on subways and busses. When a rail link was reestablished between Staten Island and Manhattan, Bloomberg and Pataki chose freight rail over passenger rail, demonstrating their contempt for middle class New Yorkers. Only corporate interests matter to them.

Bloomberg’s response to the London bombings was pure Bush/Rove. When local Democrats turned up the heat on the Bush regime to get more funding for public transport security, Bloomberg set up a distraction with his random and seldom searches of riders’ bags. Everyone knows this has nothing to do with protecting passengers and everything to do with attacking American freedoms, what Bush and Rove want the most. Of course, Bloomberg previously has attacked our constitutional freedoms on multiple occasions, the most famously when he illegally denied permits for anti-GOP protests in Central Park.

Bloomberg is the worst kind of Bush/Rove/Cheney Republican, yet he feels compelled to pretend otherwise to win in NYC. Let’s hope the voters aren’t fooled this time by the tens of millions of propaganda dollars he is spending to deceive people about his actions and intentions.

Blair’s bungling, flailing approach to fighting terrorism in England just shows how incapable he and Bush are of taking productive action to protect their respective nations from terrorist attacks.

Blair still is claiming that there are no links between the London attacks and the war in Iraq. One obvious link is that the occupation and killings in Iraq are infuriating the Muslim world, helping Al Queda recruit terrorists worldwide.

Instead of reevaluating the Iraq war, and its role in aiding and abetting Al Queda, Blair is pushing a shoot-to-kill policy against people who randomly seem suspicious. This isn’t helping protect Britain, but it is alienating Brazilians. Hundreds of Brazilian friends and relatives of the victim have marched and demanded the arrests of the British officers who fired the fatal shots.

Protest Articles:

Scotsman

Los Angeles Times

Terrorists certainly have made it more dangerous to travel to England. But, now there is another danger: police given orders to shoot to kill anyone who they think might be a terrorist. The killing of an innocent Brazilian man is extremely disturbing. All he did was to do something completely normal on a subway system: running to catch a train.

Tony Blair, a rather wimpy man, is rushing to outdo the macho talk of another wimpy man, George W. Bush. In the process, civil liberties and basic safety have been severely compromised. I am unwilling to let terrorists dictate where I travel, but I also am unwilling to be killed because of insane orders of the government of the travel destination. I’m not willing to take a stray bullet because Tony Blair has lost it.

Even if the policy was limited to those who really are terrorists fleeing from the police, it needs to be reconsidered. Dead terrorists provide no information about other terrorists.

Meanwhile, I’m not traveling to England until this policy is revoked.

Will Bush’s Supreme Court nomination of rightist zealot judge John G. Roberts Jr. distract liberals from Rove’s ethical problems? Do liberals have to choose whether to fight Roberts or publicize Rovegate?

I’ve heard and read various versions of these questions the past day or two. This completely underestimates liberals. We can fight the illegitimate regime in more than one area. We can focus on more than one thing at a time.

This gives us an advantage against the dittoheads of the world who can only obsess on one issue during a given time. Here are some links on Roberts:

http://media.pfaw.org/roberts.pdf
http://www.independentjudiciary.com/resources/docs/John_Roberts_Report.pdf
http://www.prochoice.org/policy/courts/nominations/roberts_facts.html

Both of them were involved in revealing the identity of a CIA agent in order to obtain revenge against her conservative Republican husband whose only “offense” was telling the truth about the hokey story that the Bush regime invented about Saddam Hussein trying to obtain uranium from Niger.

Even worse, these actions of Novak and Rove have undermined the CIA’s efforts to gather intelligence on nuclear proliferation, something of critical importance in the post-911 world. The betrayal of an undercover agent also will make it more difficult for the CIA to hire and retain undercover agents.

Rove’s actions make him unfit to serve in the White House, regardless of the outcome of the criminal investigation against him. Novak’s actions have eliminated any credibility that Novak might have had at one time, and CNN discredits itself by continuing to employ Novak.

Contact Bush and demand that Rove be fired.
president@whitehouse.gov

Contact the Republican National Committee and demand that they publicly insist on Rove’s firing.
info@gop.com

Contact CNN and demand that Novak be fired.
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form4a.html?1

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) is blaming war opponents for low Army recruitment. There is some interesting text at the end of the bio on his official Senate web site:

"They have four grown children and twelve grandchildren."

As far as I know, none of his progeny are in the military. Sounds like there is an issue for the taking if anyone prominent enough who has a research staff wants to go for it.

Meanwhile, the corporate media are acting as stenographers for the Bush Administration’s claims that the Army met its recruitment goal for June, while conveniently neglecting to mention that this was only the case because the goal had been lowered drastically.

The overwrought corporate media coverage of the death of Wal-Mart clan member John Walton is disturbing if you think about it. Consider how many Wal-Mart employees have died because that company refuses to provide most of its workers with health insurance. Why haven’t the corporate media lavished the same attention of these senseless deaths of people who worked at Wal-Mart?

This is typical of a corporate media that censors news stories that make its advertisers look bad. It also reflects the lack of value the “mainstream” media place on the lives of people who are poor.

We are seeing another parallel between the Bush regime and the Nixon Administration. Just as the Nixon Administration talked about “Vietnamization” and started negotiating with the Vietnamese nationalists, the Bush regime has started the process of a spun surrender.

The Bush regime is training an “Iraqi military” that has no interest in fighting for the occupation. The skills they are receiving will come in handy when the Shiites and Sunnis begin their battle for who will rule in post-occupation Iraq. This reminds history buffs of how the Nixon administration trained Vietnamese who had no interest in defending the puppet regime in South Vietnam.

Now, we have learned that the Bush regime has started secret talks with the rebels. For over a year, it has been no secret that Bush has lost the war. Now, even they are starting to face their failure.

This is a common refrain online these days. Some may think this overly personalizes the politics of Iraq, but I disagree. Iraq is highly personal to the families of US troops killed there. It is just as personal to the thousands of US fighting people maimed in a crusade for Halliburton, Big Oil, and the Religious Right.

The Bush regime tries to do everything it can to hide the fact that our young people are dying in Iraq. They still refuse to let the media photograph the body bags that give testimony to the sacrifices of the dead. GOP shills in the media attack any news outlet that honors our fallen.

The sad reality is that the only conceivable way to get Bush to take the dying seriously is for members of his own family to be on the line in Iraq. Bush treats the dying of US troops as something of little or no consequence. For him, dying in wars is for the little people.

On the Yahoo Message Boards, you get a look into what the rightists are really thinking, without the spin doctors to clean things up. Here are some quotes that let you know the far right’s unsanitized perspective:

To allow freaks and degenerate homos to adopt or receive children thru foster care is only inviting the sexual abuse and attempted homosexual conversion of thousands of innocent children at the hands of these sick animals!!

Democrats hate democracy, they lose to often.

The Muslim religion should be equivocated to the Nazi regieme of the last century.

HEY MIKEY...
did you really think we would forget or forgive the murder of Terri??

The wide spread pedophilia phenomenon is a homosexual dilemma.
It is a dilemma that gay-marriage will not overcome. This is why we know that the Party of Treason will soon lobby to decriminalize pedophilia. The Jackson trial may have been a channel by which the issue is introduced to the public. It is a normal progression once homosexuality becomes part of the culture.

You can dress it up all you want but the fact is a so called husband is murdering his wife by starving her to death, while he enjoys the comforts of wife #2 waiting in the wings.
And the so called justice system is helping him.
Her blood is on all those who are helping him to do this.
All of you are guilty of her murder.

Phuck you, loser......you epitomize the LIBTURD losers who will cost the Democrat Party dearly for at least a generation....perhaps even longer...
You are incapable of holding a civil discussion.....bye, bye loser......

WHITES NEED TO FORM A HIT SQUAD
To take out Muslims. And I don't mean to lunch.

Note: I do not condone the statements above. They are being posted for purposes of illustration only.

For over a year now, it has been obvious that Bush has lost the war in Iraq. The insurgency grows in strength; international opposition to the war stays strong; and the few corrupt governments that have sent their troops to help Bush in his war are gradually withdrawing their forces.

The biggest winners of this war have been Osama bin Laden and Al Queda. This war had toppled their time enemy, Saddam Hussein, while helping Al Queda recruit terrorists. Adding to the magnitude of the disaster, the war in Iraq has caused a dramatic increase in bin Laden’s popularity in the Muslim world.

A phony “election,” where the results were rigged to keep the government from representing the large majority of Iraqi voters who chose Shia parties, has done nothing to stabilize the situation. In a Kurdish area of the country, Christians were not even allowed to vote.

Four more US troops were killed today, leaving the official total at 1682 killed. The corporate media generally don’t bother to report on the troops that are maimed in this nutty war.

The Iraqis we are training to serve in that country’s military are merely seeking skills they can use for the insurgency. As of last summer, over 100,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed in the war. Who knows how many more have been slaughtered since then?

Yet, the corporate-owned media refuse to report the fact that Bush has lost this war. They even avoid reporting on the deaths of American soldiers now. The pro-war, pro-GOP, pro-Bush bias of these corporate “news” outlets gets more blatant as time goes by. Is it any wonder so many people are seeking uncorrupted sources of news and information?

The Washington Post’s usual habit is to propagandize in favor of corporate interests and the GOP in its “news pages” while running moderate to liberal editorials. This lets them promote their right-wing agenda while giving their knuckle-walking rightist subscribers the proper impression that they are part of the “liberal media.” Every once in a while, they slip up big time as was the case in their recent editorial trying to put a positive spin on Bush’s gulags.

The Post actually had the audacity to write about Amnesty International’s use of the term “gulags” in the following manner:

But lately the organization has tended to save its most vitriolic condemnations not for the world's dictators but for the United States.

This is laughable when you remember that George W. Bush is illegally occupying the White House due to not one, but two stolen elections. Thus far, the Post has refused to report that either election has been stolen. This claim also is deceptive because condemning the actions of the Bush regime is not condemning the United States. The Bush regime in no way represents the United States.

The Post also falsely claimed that “Guantanamo Bay is an ad hoc creation, designed to contain captured enemy combatants during wartime.” In fact, the gulag at Guantanamo Bay is part of the Bush regime’s broader desire to torture and imprison Muslims. So far, none of the American citizens illegally imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay has been charged or tried in a legitimate court of law.

The Post goes on to say:

Abuses there -- including new evidence of desecrating the Koran -- have been investigated and discussed by the FBI, the press and, to a still limited extent, the military.

These “investigations” have been mere coverups. There has yet to be any Special Prosecutor appointed to determine the Bush regime’s roll in the mass torture, rape, and murder of prisoners in their gulags. If legitimate criminal investigations had been taken place, senior Bush administration officials already would have been indicted for war crimes. If the press in the US were truly independent of corporate corruption and the Bush regime’s political influence, every major daily paper in this country already would have called for Bush’s and Cheney’s impeachments. There would be equally strong calls in the nation’s daily newspapers for Bush Administration officials to be tried for crimes against humanity.

The Post also engages in homophobic rhetoric in its editorial.

Turning a report on prisoner detention into another excuse for Bush-bashing or America-bashing undermines Amnesty's legitimate criticisms of U.S. policies and weakens the force of its investigations of prison systems in closed societies.

The Washington Post’s use of the terms “Bush-basing” and “America-bashing” is outrageous. Equating completely fair, accurate, and legitimate criticism of brutal policies with violent assaults and murders of people on the basis of their sexual orientations and gender identities is viciously heterosexist. The Post owes all of its lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender readers an immediate apology for this bigoted rhetoric.

The use of the second term adds additional insult given the fact that every patriotic American is outraged at the Bush regime and its gulags.

The Post has abandoned the pretense of any kind of journalistic professionalism or editorial judgement. The Post is nothing more than a propaganda device for corporate interests, the GOP, and the Religious Right. There is no point in even buying the paper. It is a complete joke.

Media critic Jeff Cohen has come up with a brilliant idea of how to stand up for democracy in Venezuela. He has called for a buycott of Citgo gas stations. According to the Citgo Web site:

The company is owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Venezuela is the same country whose democratically elected government has been the target of an unsuccessful coup attempt by the Bush regime.

Buying gas from Citgo stations can help accomplish three important goals:

-supporting democracy in Venezuela and throughout the world>

-opposing the tyrannical and unelected Bush regime

-keeping money from going to the terrorist regime in Saudi Arabia

Related articles:

Bush Administration Behind Failed Military Coup in Venezuela

Coup-making in Venezuela: the Bush and oil factors

Venezuela coup linked to Bush team

Sadly, too many politicians are forgetting that the flag is not just a physical object. It stands for freedom. Yet, many congressmembers and senators are supporting a “flag desecration” amendment which restricts freedom. The American Civil Liberties Union is taking a courageous stand against this Amendment, and you can support their efforts.

ACLU Action Alert

It should be noted that this amendment discriminates against atheists by trying to impose the religious concept of desecration into the political discourse and into the Constitution.

If every reporter, editor, and publisher/news executive took the following quote seriously, our media would improve dramatically.

News is what people want to keep hidden, and everything else is publicity.

This is from an excellent speech by Bill Moyers at the National Conference for Media Reform. I heard part of it during the latest WBAI pledge drive, and it was quite inspiring.

Full Text of Moyers’ 2005 Speech

Moyers’ 2003 Keynote

Human Rights First: In Their Own Words: Detainees Tell of Degradation of Religious Beliefs at Guantanamo

NEW YORK – Detainees held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay told their U.S. lawyers about the use of tactics intended to degrade their religious beliefs in a series of interviews that were recently declassified by the U.S. Department of Defense and were published at Human Rights First today. The charges are consistent with other allegations by detainees at U.S.- run facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with Defense Department reports that have already been made public.

In addition to the press release, Human Rights First has released a detailed report.

It is becoming even more obvious that trashing the Koran is part of the Bush regime's policy of torturing prisoners, not just in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also at Gitmo. This is typical of the Christian Right's book-burning mentality.

Harper’s Magazine has released an interview with an Afghan prisoner who was an eyewitness to throwing the Koran “into the latrine.”

Even before this latest disclosure, it was obvious that Newsweek had backed down from an accurate story in response to political pressure from the Bush regime. The retraction is so typical of the right-wing bias and lack of journalistic standards so common in today’s corporate media.

Of course, the very notion of “desecration” is intellectually dubious, to put it charitably. But, flushing books down the toilet too closely reflects the anti-intellectualism of Bush and the rest of the Religious Right.

Congratulations to The Liquid List for sniffing this one out.

UPDATE: The International Red Cross informed the Pentagon about similar incidents in 2002 and 2003.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-OR, has decided to vote against the queer community and support the “nuclear option” which would stop filibusters of Bush’s most homophobic judicial nominees. This is an interesting payback for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) which endorsed Smith’s 2002 Senate campaign in spite of the fact that his opponent was more supportive on lgbt issues.

The HRC has a habit of endorsing some Republicans who are less supportive than their opponents each election. This obvious pandering to wealthy Republican donors has been rationalized in various ways, none of which have ever had much credibility. One favorite excuse has been that endorsing less supportive Republicans is a way to improve our community’s relationship with that party, which supposedly will help us in the legislative arena.

The HRC has been making these deceptive endorsements since at least 1994, and the national GOP is even more fanatical in its homo-hatred than before. You would think that the HRC would abandon a strategy that has failed to achieve even one important queer civil rights victory, if the misleading endorsements actually were part of a legislative strategy.

Smith has taught the HRC an important lesson, pandering to Republicans does not make them your friends. The HRC needs to hold Republican politicians to the same standards that they hold everyone else to.

Part 1

There are a couple of catches. Installing extensions violates the premise of many user-interface gurus who want to clear away too many options. If you get confused by lots of options, you will want to be very selective about which options you want. Another minor problem is that their model has been so successful in generating extensions, the design for the extensions area could use an overhaul. Also, their Search engine would probably do a better job in helping you find what you want if developers had to enter a mandatory description field with a minimum of 100 characters.

The interesting aspect of this is that no competitor can maintain any kind of advantage for a significant amount of time. If someone comes up with a new bell or whistle, it will be added by a Firefox extensions developer in short order. It looks as though open source is the future of browsers.

To add extensions to your Firefox browser, go to the “Tools” menu, then select “Extensions.” Once the “Extensions” window pops up, select “Get More Extensions” on the lower right. The Extensions window also is useful, because it lets you uninstall extensions that you decide you don’t want later.

You don’t have Firefox???? Upgrade your browser to Firefox.

Much attention has been given to this open-source upstart browser, focusing on its security advantages, superior user interface, and reduce file size compared to Internet Explorer. In the general U.S. web public, Firefox now has nearly 7% of the market share, bouncing IE to below 89%, down from 95.5% a year ago. Given that most users do not bother to even install a browser, this is remarkable.

In Europe, where people tend to be better educated than here in the U.S., Firefox has over 13% of the market (30% in Finland and almost 23% in Germany). Firefox’s share on the O’Reilly web sites was recently reported at 35%, which is hardly surprising given the tech-savvy nature of that audience.

With all the media buzz, the best feature of the browser is being underemphasized. Extensions are what truly separate Firefox not only from IE, but from Opera and all other proprietary browsers. This is where the strength of the open source model has its greatest effect. Any sufficiently skilled programmer who wants a new feature or to change the browser’s behavior has the ability to design extensions to the browser. The Firefox Extensions site also has a user rating system, with comments, which help you evaluate whether or not you wish to add them.

“Paste and Go” is my favorite. If you copy a Web address, you can right-click and choose “Paste and Go,” meaning you don’t have to then click on Go after pasting or hit the enter key. Even more useful is that extension’s “Paste and Search” feature, which allows you to paste your keywords into the browser’s search box and get results with a single right-click. Other extensions improve bookmarking, get rid of animated gifs, and change the behavior of tabbed browsing, something Microsoft has yet to even implement in its browser.

There are serious developer tools, like validation of code, a color picker, and a screen reader validator. There are sublimely silly extensions, including one that makes the text on the pages sound like they were uttered by the Swedish Chef.

Part 2

One indication of how pervasive the right-wing bias is in corporate-owned media can be found in the burying of Gannongate. Let’s review the situation.

- A man posing as a reporter gained access to the White House on numerous occasions under an inaccurate name.

- The organization he worked for was a front for the Texas GOP.

- This person was given preferential treatment at Bush’s press conferences in return for softball questions which primarily served to glorify Bush and vilify the opposition party rather than obtaining information for the public about the Bush regime and its policies.

- There are allegations that Guckert/Gannon received classified information about the identity of a CIA agent whose husband offended the Bush regime.

- There is no indication that a proper vetting was done on Gannon before giving him access inside the White House, a serious security breach.

- The Gannongate scandal happened at the same general time that the Bush Administration got caught paying off fundamentalist propagandists Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher with government funds.

If something like this happened during a Democratic administration, every major news outlet would flog the story to death. Republicans would start impeachment proceedings, and they would be quite correct in doing so.

Gannon seems to be starting a pity campaign to get queers to ignore the story. But, it’s tough for me to have any sympathy for him when he has been completely disloyal to the lgbt community. Gannon has propagandized for Bush, a fanatical and dangerous homophobe and has been active in the homo-hating Free Republic crowd. He actually attacked a politician for being pro-gay (in this case John Kerry). Loyalty is a two-way street, something Gannon/Guckert/whatever has yet to realize.

The irony is that only sheer laziness by the Bush regime allowed Gannon to become the high profile player he temporarily became. If they knew he was queer, much less involved in porno/prostitution Web sites, the wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near Bush’s press conferences.

Alternet has an excellent article on the subject by Michael Dietz, “Becoming Jeff Gannon”

Democrats.com is calling for a Special Prosecutor to investigate the scandal.

MoveOn is promoting a Flash animation that offers a solution to a relatively minor long term problem with Social Security during the middle of this century: eliminating the salary cap on Social Security taxation. As the animation points out, CEO’s pay a much lower percentage of their income to Social Security than police officers do.

Check it out

There’s a fairly recent trend in spam: fundamentalist Christian junk emailers. One of the most prolific is from Christian Debt Removers. Christian Mortgage USA gets its licks in too. Even though I’m an atheist, I get emails for the “Christian Dish,” with the “best in Christian programming.” Talk about an oxymoron. I could even meet Talibanists for dating from “Christian Singles.”

I love how fundamentalist Christians, who love to condemn everyone else as “immoral,” have little or no standards of ethical behavior.

I can’t wait for emails selling “Christian” Viagra.

The media tend to be more interested in covering Democrats when they criticize Bush and the GOP than covering Democratic policy proposals. It’s good to try to balance things out a bit.

Boxer And Woolsey Introduce Legislation To Permanently Protect The Sonoma Coast

It's important to defend America from the Republican Party's Talibanist agenda, but it also is important for liberals to present positive ideas. Being the lesser of two evils isn't enough.

I'm an apparently intelligent, liberal, not-too-generous, not-too-selfish, relatively well adjusted human being!
See how compatible you are with me!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

During ceremonies commemorating the victory against Nazi Germany, Bush actually said the following:

"We are fighting this battle together. The struggle for peace connects us all."

The most notorious war-monger in the world today actually said he is struggling for peace. With Bush and his regime, truth is stranger than fiction. Article

Rolling Stone has an excellent piece on Operation Iraqi Quagmire. The author saves the most interesting part for last:

---------------------------------

In fact, it may already be too late to prevent Iraq from exploding. Iraq's new government is stuck in a fatal Catch-22: To have any credibility among Iraqis it must break with the U.S. and oppose the occupation, but it couldn't last a week without the protection of American troops. The Bush administration is also stuck. Its failure to stabilize Iraq, and the continuing casualties there, have led to a steady slide in the president's popularity: Polls show that a majority of Americans no longer think that the war in Iraq was worth fighting in the first place. Yet withdrawing from Iraq would only lead to more chaos, and the rest of the world has exhibited little interest in cleaning up America's mess. Of the two dozen or so countries that sent troops to Iraq, fewer and fewer remain: Spain, Portugal, Hungary and New Zealand have already quit, and the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Italy have announced they are getting out. Even if the United Nations agreed to step in, there is little or no chance that the administration will internationalize control over Iraq. In the face of a full-scale civil war in Iraq, says a source close to the U.S. military, Bush intends to go it alone.

"Our policy is to make Iraq a colony," he says. "We won't let go."


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Article

Looks like that annoying show is going to finally bite the dust, torturing people only in syndication. I could never get through more than 5 minutes of it without wretching. If I were Italian-American, I would be boycotting CBS over the negative portrayals of that ethnic group.

The program does show something about the state of network television these days. The militant fundamentalists at hate-groups like the so-called “Parents Television Council” have succeeded at censoring network tv to the point that only sanitized snores have a future on broadcast tv.

Two anti-Raymond links:

From Robotjohnny.com

From Downtownchickchat.com

MoveOn.org is fighting the Bush regime's efforts to wipe out Social Security:

https://www.moveon.org/donatec4/socialsecurity.html

Ex-Capitol leader in sex scandal
Spokane Mayor Jim West accused of molesting two boys

http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050506/NEWS/505060305

And, the Religious Right says that liberal homos are the pedophiles.

It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Why did I start this web log?

I always thought I'd do something like this. Now, I have a cold, can't sleep, and don't feel like doing anything strenuous or productive.