I've been a swing voter between the Democrats and the Greens for years, but voting for Democrats keeps getting more difficult. This latest incident of morally repugnant racism from New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Anthony Weiner.

From CBS News New York 5/19/11 where Gillibrand attacked Obama for calling on Israel to accept its internationally recognized borders.

“Steps toward a lasting peace, with real security, cannot start with pre-existing conditions on Israel, said New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

Of course, a vicious bigot like Gillibrand would say that Israel cannot be forced to stop illegally occupying Palestinian land. She actually thinks that the US is obligated to support territorial claims of a racist government that is guilty, guilty, guilty of ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian people in Palestine and which systematically oppresses and discriminates against Palestinians living in their native lands in Israel. Obviously, she thinks that it is perfectly OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons that were obtained by a terrorist attack against the USS Liberty, yet she pretends that it faces a real security threat to its actual, legitimate borders.

I can't say I'm surprised. Nothing a bloodthirsty, NRA/KKK gun extremist like Kirsten Gillibrand could do would ever disappoint me. A pro robbery, rape, and murder politician like her is completely beneath contempt.

Anthony Weiner couldn't help but join in on the racismfest either.

“The Palestinians have said in 1967 and every year since that they want Israel not to even exist. That’s the problem,” added Rep. Anthony Weiner.

“I think the fundamental philosophy of the United States should be trying to help our ally in the region, to help democracy and freedom. That means being an ally of Israel. The Palestinians have made it clear again and again they prefer violence to peace.”

Never mind that Israel has never recognized the right of Palestinians to exist either.

Israel cannot be represented as a democracy when its political system blocks participation by Palestinian parties in governing the country. Most land in Israel is owned by a foundation that openly excludes rentals to anyone who isn't Jewish. So much for "freedom."

Weiner also is perfectly aware of the absolute fact that Israel regularly commits far more and far deadlier acts of violence against the Palestinians. Weiner also is perfectly aware of the absolute fact that Israel's political and military leaders are guilty of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza. He also knows that Israel is guilty of a military siege against Gaza, which is another crime against humanity.

Horror of horrors that Obama even pay lip service to getting Israel to accept its internationally established borders. No decent, honorable, moral person supports Israel keeping on square inch of territory it has stolen. Yet, Weiner's venomous racism against Arabs won't tolerate keeping Israel within its own borders.

Of course, this isn't the only example of slimy, dishonest behavior from that rightist Phonycrat. He pretended to champion the Public Option only to gleefully throw middle class and poor people under the bus and vote for Barack Bush's wealthcare plan for the HMOs, health insurers, and Big Pharma. The man has absolutely no personal or public integrity whatsoever. Weiner is the epitome of a bought politician. He's as much of a habitual liar as he is a venomous racist.

Incredibly rightist and bigoted politicians like Gillibrand and Weiner are far from exceptional in the Democratic Party. Heinous bullshit like this is why I'm finding it more and more difficult to support any Democrat ever again. These two de facto teabaggers are incredibly strong arguments for the Green Party.

 

Have you upgraded your Firefox to version 4 and regretted it? Have you been stuck with a user interface as execrable and thoughtless as the terrible one in Google Chrome?

This excellent article shows how to fix the three biggest defects in the FF4 user interface: the tabs being too far from the content, the missing Status Bar (which is critical for many addons), and the missing menu bar (Mac users didn't get screwed over like PC users did on this one because every program has a menu tied into the way the OS is designed.)

This is not to say that Google Chrome is all bad. It has the best JavaScript engine of all the browsers, making the full featured version of Yahoo Mail run much faster. But, there's an axiom that every program designer should keep in mind.

Google is great at tech stuff under the hood, but Google knows absolutely nothing whatsoever about interface design.

In this case, Google started a bad trend in browser design by taking usability research that applies only to e-commerce sites that are visited seldom or occasionally as if that research was applicable to all software design. That research isn't even valid for web sites that are visited regularly by users or sites where users aren't performing simple, linear tasks.

If you are going to use a program or website regularly, you are going to want a variety of features readily available to you. You don't want to dig, and dig, and dig through convoluted menuing systems for something you do regularly.

It's comical that other browser developers are emulating Google's user interface, the one aspect of Chrome which is by far the most pathetic and mindless. The people at Mozilla should be focusing on improving their JavaScript speed rather than damaging their user interface.

The US Olympic Committee's (USOC's) choice of Peter Vidmar as its representative raised serious concerns, given his attendance at neo Nazi hate rallies organized by the Mormon hate church in favor of Proposition 8 in California. Vidmar's membership in a notorious racist, sexist, and heterosexist hate group like the Mormon Church also raised serious, legitimate concerns.

Vidmar pulled out after the controversy came up, but the whole thing reminds me of the vicious, heterosexist history of the USOC. Here's a good summary from Instinct Magazine (4/29/11):

Outsports reminds us that this is not the first time the USOC has made an anti-gay move, with contributor Jim Buzinski writing, "When Dr. Tom Waddell started an international multisport event for LGBT people in 1982, he wanted to call it the 'Gay Olympic Games.' But he was successfully sued by the USOC, which hounded him for $96,000 legal fees as he was dying of AIDS. The event was renamed the Gay Games. The USOC at the time had no problem with there being events called the 'Rat Olympics' or 'Dog Olympics.'"

This is one of the reasons why I will never give a dime to the USOC or buy any product that is an official sponsor of that organization.

The odd thing about this whole thing is that when I saw Vidmar doing gymnastics, the way he walked, his facial expressions, and the way he talked all caused my gaydar to go off the scale. It would be so bizarre if he really were straight.

 

Like many gay and bi men, I watched pro wrestling as a child, instinctively seeing it for what it really is: softcore gay/bi porn. So, I couldn't help notice with amazement the "USA! USA!" chants at the bin Laden death parties that have been happening in this country.

Those voice on the radio today remind me of how that chant started. Pro wrestling promoters would dress people up as foreigners from countries that the US ruling elites were in conflict with. The "foreigners" would do all sorts of dastardly deeds, and the American wrestlers would fight back while the crowd would chant "USA! USA!"

This country gets more and more bizarre.

During the Olympics in Atlanta (a hotbed of pro wrestling), I noticed how American crowds kept chanting "USA! USA!" They had no respect for athletes from other countries. All home country audiences are somewhat nationalistic, but other host audiences showed appreciation for athletes from other countries, which is a huge part of what the Olympics are supposed to be about.

I am convinced that this rude behavior is part of why NYC and Chicago lost their Olympics bids, though perfectly reasonable opposition in those cities played a huge roll too. (I still haven't forgiven Mayor for Life Bloomberg for misappropriating city money for political ads trying to get New Yorkers to support a hugely inappropriate Olympics bid in a city that just can't handle the disruption.)

Now, with people using chants from pro wrestling to celebrate the killing of an unarmed human being outside of the rule of law, I can't help but think that our country has become a cheesy parody of itself. We largely wrote the international laws that the Bush and Obama regimes have routinely violated, but we also have written the pro wrestling scripts that their acolytes have played out in surreal death parties.

Maybe Linda McMahon will be President someday.

BTW: Here are the real names of some of those eeeebilll "foreign" wrestlers.

Abdullah the Butcher: Larry Shreeve
Boris Zhukov: Jim Darrel
Ivan Koloff: James Parris
Kamala: James Harris
Killer Karl Krupp: George Momberg
Kwang: Juan Rivera
Mongolian Mauler: Peter Miller
Mongolian Stomper: Archie Gouldie
Nikita Koloff: Scott Simpson
Papa Shango: Charles Wright


 

The world's biggest excuse is dead.

We still don't know who was responsible for 911. There never has been a credible, legitimate, and politically independent investigation of 911. However, our political and media elites have insisted that the 911 attacks were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden and have tried to marginalize and demonize anyone who questions any aspect of the officially sanctioned conspiracy theory to explain those horrific attacks.

We still are in an illegal and insane war in Iraq. There are roughly 47,000 of our troops still stuck in Iraq, occupying that country. There are over 60,000 mercenaries still in Iraq. That's right. Occupying forces are at over 100,000 in a war that the corporate media pretend isn't even going on.

We are in a war in Afghanistan that is primarily focused on establishing a natural gas pipeline going through that country. The natural gas will end up being used in India to outsource US jobs and to switch US jobs that had been outsourced to China over to India, where labor costs have not increased as they have in China.

Osama bin Laden has been used as a pretext to keep us in hugely expensive and murderous wars that have even killed more Americans than were killed in the 911 attacks. That excuse is dead.

It's time to push harder to end these deadly and costly wars that create profits for evil corporations and the rich, but screw the rest of us over.

 

Setting aside matters of policy, the last thing we need is another spoiled rich scumbag trying to buy another office.

Liberation News: Anti-War March NYC Sat April 9th from PSLweb.org on Vimeo.

I've been busy with things in my personal life, but I thought people might be interested in some voices of the underrepresented from last weekend's big anti war protest in NYC.

 

It's amazing that so much angst and anger are being wasted over something so trivial. A militant, Christian fundamentalist did what most fundies want to do. He burned a Koran. I find it amazing that he found that bullshit book "guilty" while not even putting the Bible on trial. That is spectacular hypocrisy.

Not to be outdone, militant, Muslim fundamentalists have reacted in a way that is far worse, engaging in violence and murder over such an incredibly petty offense. I don't favor any book burning on principle, but the notions that religious texts should be given some kind of privileged status would be as comical as it is bigoted if people weren't being senselessly murdered over it.

Note to religionists: You have no legitimate right or reason to get upset if someone disrespects your religion. Your religious beliefs apply to you alone. You have no right to try to apply them to anyone else under any circumstances. You don't have any business trying to get other people to respect your irrational, childish, superstitious, and preposterous beliefs. No matter how upset you get about it, two plus two will never equal twenty two. It will always be four.

The misogyny, racism, heterosexism, fascism, anti intellectualism, greed, corruption, rape, and murder of religion should be enough to make any sane person start questioning her or his religious beliefs. And, anyone who honestly and rationally questions religious beliefs ends up abandoning them. At some point, that person will wonder how they ever could have believed in anything so outlandish.

The sense of religious privilege and entitlement among the small Florida fundamentalist church and the multitudes of fundamentalist rioters is disgusting and inexcusable.

 

Andrew Cuomo

If his name sounds familiar, it should. Andrew Cuomo was the corrupt Attorney General who refused to go after the multitude of Wall St. crooks because he was chasing after their big money campaign contributions.

Now, New York's mini me version of Scott Walker has just gotten through a budget with draconian and completely unnecessary cuts to attack public workers, the middle class, and the poor. That piece of walking garbage even pushed through a tax cut for the rich.

Cuomo's sleazy 3/28/10 press release should give you an idea of what he's really about.

"I have said that New York is at a crossroads – one road leading to further dysfunction and decline, the other towards fiscal responsibility and government efficiency. I believe this budget puts us on the right path," Governor Cuomo said. "This budget makes tough choices, which is what you sent me to Albany to do. It closes a $10 billion dollar deficit with no new taxes or borrowing, redesigns government to force it to cut waste and inefficiency, and finally delivers real results for hard-working families across New York State. I applaud and thank Majority Leader Skelos and Speaker Silver for working together to reach this agreement."

Let's look at the facts.

1) The deficit was one entirely manufactured by corruption and easily could have been resolved without cutting the state budget at all. The amount of money handed to back to Wall St. in the stock transfer tax rebate would be more than enough to balance the budget. Nothing epitomizes the pay for play environment in Albany than the stock transfer tax rebate, a Wall St giveaway, and Andrew Cuomo is one of its most strident and uncompromising supporters.

2) Cuomo massively cut taxes for the super rich in order to reward big money campaign contributors.

3) Cuomo's cuts were far from "waste and inefficiency." Cuomo cut HIV/AIDS funding, public K-12 education, funding for public universities, medical care for the poor, foster care, and mental health care among other vital services. Obviously, Cuomo thinks that it is "a waste" anytime anything goes to anyone who isn't a wealthy donor of his. Cuomo is such a spoiled, elitist, classist jackass who will do anything his rich and corporate bankrollers tell him to do.

4) The "real results for hard-working families across New York State" Cuomo is touting are lost jobs, lost services, daughters and sons who cannot afford college, and slower economic growth in the state. The results for his rich contributors will be..........Ka-ching!

No one can seriously claim to be moving "towards fiscal responsibility" while cutting taxes for the rich and continuing a huge, corrupt Wall St. giveaway. A fiscally responsible governor would have raised taxes on the rich considerably, given that tax rates for wealthy parasites have been cut over and over again.

Remember, any time any politician supports a tax cut for the rich or insists on keeping tax breaks for Wall St, that is absolute, irrefutable proof of corruption.

The reality is that Andrew Cuomo is an incredibly evil person with absolutely no personal or public integrity whatsoever. He may pretend to be a centrist Democrat, but he's really an extreme rightist whose real agenda is scarcely different from that of Scott Walker, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, or Karl Rove.

The rest of the Democrats who went along with this inexcusable budget deserve nothing but contempt as well. I don't know how I could ever vote for a New York "Democrat" again after this. The New York "Democrats" are as sleazy and as far to the extreme right as Texas Republicans, when you look at what they do instead of what they say.

 

Note: This is not a prioritized list.

121) Refusing to respect any treaties with the indigenous population of this country.

122) Demanding the "right" to assassinate US citizens.

123) Continuing the Bush-era policy of opposing the return of Haiti’s ousted former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was overthrown in a 2004 U.S./France/Canada-backed coup.

124) Supports government Internet ID to spy on Americans.

125) Sicking a grand jury on peace activists.

126) Pushes a salary freeze on federal workers.

127) Votes against ending Cuban trade embargo at UN.

128) Rebuilding a Pentagon database that was shut down three years ago after it was found to have been used to monitor US peace activists.

129) Deploying Special Forces to over 70 countries.

130) Supports mountaintop removal mining.

131) Siding with Cheney and Rove in Plamegate lawsuit.

132) Trying to slash Pell Grants.

133) Trying to cut heating assistance to poor people.

134) Supporting another rigged election in Afghanistan, keeping the widely loathed Karzai in power.

135) Refuses to support taking "In God We Trust" off of US currency.

136) Continuing to endanger the food supply by approving genetically modified crops, including alfalfa which is fed to cattle and sugar beats that are refined and put into many processed foods.

137) Censored reporters covering military tribunals at Guantanamo. (Thanks to Christopher of From the Left for reminding me about that one.)

138) Trying to put in place an "Internet Kill Switch" similar to the efforts by dictators to shut off the Internet when they face popular unrest. (Thanks again to Christopher of From the Left.)

139) Starting yet another war for oil in Libya.

140) Taking the necessary steps to ensure technical and legal obstacles to warrantless surveillance are removed.

Some of the items in this entry were from a list by St. Pete for Peace.

Got more? List them in the comments section so I can add them.

 

Folks from other parts of the country may not know that the Poconos in Pennsylvania are a favorite vacation getaway for people living in the NYC area. The Poconos also is the site of a major battle between an evil for profit hospital corporation and its workers. From Labor Notes 3/18/11:

Members of Service Employees Healthcare Pennsylvania, the workers walked out March 15 to show unity against management attempts to impose an “open shop” in contract negotiations. The strike follows an earlier one-day strike February 9.

Unionized nurses in the hospital (members of the Operating Engineers) have been speaking out in support of their co-workers, joining rallies and holding a picnic for the strikers. Other SEIU locals from Pittsburgh, Ohio, and California have sent donations.

The 550 PMC workers voted in a union four years ago and have been negotiating their second contract, which expired in October. Management has been trying to push the “open shop” poison pill into the contract, in which workers could get the benefits of the union without paying dues.

These hospital workers had to fight hard to even get a union representation election in the first place, one that they won by a 2-1 margin. Now, an evil corporation is trying to divide the workplace and weaken the union by pushing a blatantly unethical "open shop" provision in contract talks.

It takes a lot to organize a union in the face of employer opposition. Working conditions and patient care conditions at the hospital forced the employees to fight against the odds and unionize.

Let's say that the fascist corporation wins the battle. Let's say that the workers get totally screwed. What will be the impact on healthcare?

- Nurses and other employees will go to work understandably angry and resentful.

- Many of the best nurses and other caregivers will find work elsewhere.

- The employees making up the slow exodus will be replaced by people who are incredibly desperate for jobs in the high demand nursing field. Most of the new people will be incompetent and dangerous.

- All the employees will be working under highly distracting, stressful conditions.

Now, what happens if you get sick or injured on vacation to the Poconos? Do you really want your ambulance to take you to that hospital if management gets to flush quality healthcare down the toilet in favor of corporate greed?

I'll vacation elsewhere. Yes, it will be partly out of solidarity, but it will mostly be out of self preservation.