June 2006 Archives

Pete King, a Congressman from New York, would like the Justice Department to charge the New York Times with treason for reporting about the US tracking international monetary transfers through SWIFT. He claims it's treasonous. Well Pete, I was wondering if you'd like to also throw the books at some other people that have given "aid and comfort to our enemies", such as:

• Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush when they held back our troops at Tora Bora and let bin Laden get away?


• Alberto Gonzalez, who helped craft the memos that became the basis for the torturing done at Abu Graib and Gitmo. I can't think of any single act that's given more aid to our enemies in terms of their recruitment abilities.


• Scooter Libby and his boss Shooter Cheney, who by outing a CIA agent put her and all of her contacts at risk, and hurt our intelligence services abroad, giving both aid and comfort to our enemies.

I think we should start there, because those cases are much more clear-cut examples of treason, and then maybe we'll get around to trying the New York Times.

Last year, Katrina was explained by some as the wrath of God raining down an city known for it's debauchery; a physical example of God's displeasure for all of the naked gay socialist pro-feminist orgies they're apparently having down there.

If that's the case, then what's going on in DC? Maybe God's been 'out' when Bush calls him on the Jesus-phone lately:

"Yes, Hello?"
"Are you there God? It's me, Dubya."
"Uhmmm, God's not here right now. He had to step out for a minute."
"Can I leave him a message?"
"Really, you should just stop calling here. You've left three messages this week already. If he wanted to talk to you, he would have by now."
*click*

But I bet old Pat and Jerry (not-so-lovable purveyors of white fundamentalist hatred, not to be confused with Ben and Jerry) will somehow spin this into a message of "God's not happy you haven't locked the homos and Democrats into concentration camps yet".

While I won't claim that the Zarqawi's death was motivated by timing, I do find it suspicious that many Republicans in Congress are faced with tough races and the possibility of being sent home that we suddenly have 7 angry black men in Miami arrested for planning terrorism. They were actually arrested because an FBI informant went to them and asked them to take an Al-Qaeda oath. There are already questions about entrapment on the part of the Justice Department.

Ruby Ridge already stands as a great example of government entrapment, but certainly not the only example. And during the last election cycle the DHS candy-colored alert system crept mysteriously to orange until RIGHT AFTER the election.

Certainly we have homegrown terrorists (the E.L.F., the A.L.F., the KKK, neo-Nazis, Black Panthers, etc), and the it's probable that radicalized members of the already radical 5-percenters could twist their version of Islam further to find an excuse to start killing people, but I still find the timing very suspicious.

Given how inept these guys seem, and how there are questions about whether these guys actually even visited the Sears Tower in Chicago, I'm even further skeptical. The final nail in the coffin, however, is how ALL of the networks on the morning of the bust interviewed a member of the group, Seas of David, but he wasn't one of the ones arrested. If these guys are as big of a threat as is described, why let him go?

Salon.com is running an article on a supposed secret room the NSA has built into AT&T's major internet backbone offices in St. Louis. We all know it could be other things. I present to you:

The Top 10 List of Other Things That Could Be In That Room.

10. That's where bin Laden's hiding.

9. It's not actually the NSA, it's actually Google. They've gone from searching webpages to just drinking right off the hose. Results in real time!

8. That's where all the relief intended for Katrina victims got stuck. They just found it. Sorry guys!

7. They're going to keep all our rights safe in there until the war on terror is done.

6. That's where Karl Rove keeps his soul and conscience.

5. That's where Saddam hid his WMDs.

4. The MPAA and RIAA are building a checkpoint on the information superhighway. "Scuse me sir, have you be torrenting today?"

3. Bush can't get enough of those crazy animated gifs, so he's building an Animated GIFs Museum. Oooh, look, a dancing hampster!

2. Alberto Gonzalez needs to keep an eye out for more of those Abu Girab pictures so he can masturbate to them, I mean....prosecute those who released them.

1. It's Dick Cheney's super secret gaming room. The more bandwidth he can get, the quicker he can shoot people in the face.

Today I found out from a friend that my site is being blocked by the censorware company SonicWALL. The category they use is "Games", which is absurd, since I'm not a gaming website, I don't host games, and I have never linked to games.

I'm not sure why I'm being filtered, but SonicWALL does not provide people a way to appeal your label. Once it's set, apparently it's final.

I've found some other people who have had the same experience:
http://www.onlineconfessional.com/blog/archive/000018.html
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/000798.html
http://www.zenarchery.com/2006/04/25/panera-bread-censors-their-wi-fi/
http://mediagirl.org/node/593

UPDATE - I found a link off the last posting above and was able to request a re-examination of my website. We'll see how it goes. They promise to get me reclassified within 3-5 days. I don't hope for much for two reasons: 1. My language and content can be kind of raw at times, and seeing how I just called Ann Coulter a tranny I'll likely be classified as pornography, and 2. If sites that employ SonicWALL don't install filtering updates (could happen) then my newly reclassified site is still blocked. I don't know what their policy is for making people update, but just like all those people I know that don't update their anti-virus after installing, this could be the same thing.

I was playing the dozens online this morning with a friend and managed to snap one out pretty quick. I was impressed, so I thought I'd share it with you:

Your mom is so loose that David Blaine's next trick is going to be falling her hole and trying to make it back in a week.

AWWWWW SNAP!

Ann Coulter, or as she's known in most of the world, Karl Rove's Pet Tranny, is apparently getting even more desperate for attention. She's aware now that we've stopped giving her creedence and are just letting her forth in the corner like a soiled 3 year old in full trantrumal meltdown. The difference is that the 3 year old calms down after a few and is lovable. Anyway, on her own page Ann states:

Second, let's pause for a moment to observe that two facts are now universally accepted: Liberals are godless and Hillary's husband is a rapist.

My book makes a stark assertion: Liberalism is a godless religion. Hello! Anyone there? I've leapt beyond calling you traitors and am now calling you GODLESS. Apparently, everybody's cool with that. The fact that liberals are godless is not even a controversial point anymore.

No Ann, it's not even controversial, or worth discussing. You've grown shrill and hysterical. I look forward to the day I see you walking down the streets of D.C. pushing a shopping cart full of your unpurchased books and eating leftovers out of the dumpster behind the DNC office.

ps - Ann Coulter's really a man. Pass it on.

Ann CoulterAnn CoulterAnn Coulter

Today is Juneteenth, a day celebrated in some parts of the world, including our own United States, as the day that slaves in Galveston, TX were freed from slavery by Union Troops in 1865.

On the radio this morning, local NPR station, there was talk that people in Philadelphia would be reading the Emancipation Proclamation, which they say freed the slaves. I sigh every time I hear this because it didn't free the slaves. Rather, it freed the slaves in the Confederate States, but allowed slave owners in the Union States of Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, and Maryland to keep slaves. It also allowed slaveowners in Union-controlled New Orleans to keep their slaves, as well as those western counties in Virginia that had seceded from the rest of the state with the intention of becoming West Virginia.

Slaves were not officially free across the country until the 13th Amendment, which was not passed until the end of 1865. I hate to sound like I'm pissing on Juneteenth, or freedom for slaves, but I want to be true to history and I wish we'd stop teaching kids in school that the Emancipation Proclamation had anything to do with really ending slavery.

Lincoln had implemented it as a war-time measure, intended to break the back of the Confederate armies, which were depending on slaves to do the labor of feeding, clothing, and arming the soldiers. As a commander in Lincoln's position, I would have done the same thing, probably sooner, even, but it did not end slavery in this country. That only came after the war.

Steve Aiken is the kind of man you want running your campaign. He's a former police officer and reverend who worked with a children's program in Quakertown, PA, called YouthQuest. He's a radio talk show host who speaks on conservative family values and Republican issues, and he's affiliated with the Traditional Values Coalition. The problem is, the man has a criminal record, though Randy Graf, the Congressman in Arizona's 8th District says that Aiken's crimes are no worse than giving beer to minors. Really?

Aiken was convicted of forcing himself on a girl 15 times, including breaking into her home and undressing her so he could "rub her breasts". The prosecutors in this area I live in saw fit to charge him with a total of 2.5 months in jail. Aiken claims the charges were false, and Graf stands by his campaign manager.

WOW.

I can't believe that this is the best the Republican party can find to run campaigns. Traditional values at their best.

(Link)

I hope all you dads had a good father's day, or as they call it around here, Happy Steak and Hardware Day!

I spent it down at the pool with the kids and napping on the couch, verily a heartily good Father's Day, except my wife somehow got to take the trip down to the hardware store, which, it is my understanding, I should have done. All in all, it was good.

I have some more ruminations on Father's Day that I'd like to share, but they're not ready yet, so, more later.

The US Team faced a very tough competitor in Italy and played without two players and tied the game. That takes some skill and balls, and I'm proud of them. Thank God they didn't repeat the embarassment of the game against the Czech Republic.

With Ghana beating the Czech Republic in a stunning game, we still stand a chance to make it to the next round.

GO USA!

You've probably heard all about the sexy poker parties with hookers and booze and limos at the Watergate hotel that were, in part, set up by Duke Cunningham, recently sentenced to 8 years in jail for taking bribes from EVERYONE. Well, ole Duke urged the Department of Homeland Security to hire the very same limo company that was providing people like Porter Goss with hookers and blow. So the DHS gave the company a $21.1 million contract, but has since "lost the letter" from Duke Cunningham urging DHS to give out the contract.

My favorite part of the article:

DHS officials testified the department, which is responsible for protecting the country from terror attacks, has no way to conduct background checks on companies that bid for contracts.

Wow, they really are the Dept of Homeland Stupidity. How can they NOT do a background check on a contractor? I don't want an agency snooping into my daily life but I would expect that they would do the minimum due diligence that just about any responsible company would do. Actually, let's spin that: I'm supposed to trust them with my personal information, and with vetting the people they lock up as detainees without any ability to appeal to detention, but they can't fucking figure out that the guy who they just gifted $21.1 million to is a felon who's lost his license to do business and is tied in with prostitutes and all manner of illegal activity?

I feel so much better all around.

I really do think that Don Knotts was born in the wrong time. If he were around no, he'd have no end of work imitating the president. You can hear it can't you, Dubya saying "Nip it, nip it in the bud!" I guess the difference is that in Mayberry, Deputy Fife only had a single bullet and was under the control of a patient and wiser boss, neither of which are true here. And Bush does keep shooting himself in the foot, especially every time he shoots off at the mouth. I know this is off-topic, but can I just say that I think every time Bush says some of the things he says, he's the one giving comfort and aid to our enemies as it keeps getting easier and easier to find angry men and women around the world willing to die in conflict against us and our interests. Anyway, Mr. Don Knotts, rest in peace. Where your close-minded buffoonery and bumpkin-like nature made us laugh, we can only cry at a president exhibiting those same qualities.

Let me be clear that when I talk about the dangers of tougher enforcement of immigration laws, I am not talking about this group of immigrants. I certainly hope that anyone, immigrant or not, who is robbing banks, raping people, molesting children, and other such heinous crimes should be picked up and jailed.

But you probably already knew I felt that way.

But for the record, can I also ask them to pick up and send Fred Phelps somewhere? ANYWHERE? Can we send him to Gitmo?

With all of the huffing and puffing about immigration recently, one thing many people have heard, while trying to strike a balance is "We don't need any new laws, we just need to enforce the ones we already have on the books." or "We don't need to keep locking up the immigrants, but go after the companies that hire them. That'll stop the flow."

Well, ICE was listening, and a few weeks ago raided Fischer Homes in Northern Kentucky.

Something else besides the government and our king and all of the other issues I blog about lately: my family's overconsumption and world hunger. My wife's not crazy about the dishes, and strangely enough I find them very relaxing to do; my little Zen activity every night. I have noticed over the last few days how much food we make and how much ends up getting noticed and I guess finally this week it really really started to bother me. I can't stop thinking about how the little bit of rice that I threw down the disposal could mean the difference between life and death for someone, especially some children in other countries, and it depresses me.

I want to find some way to address the issue without having to rely on an organization like the UN, which I view as too tied up in its own bureaucracy to do a lot of good. Does anyone have any suggestions? I was looking at OXFAM, but are there other good reputable charities that are tackling world hunger I can deal with? In the meantime I'm going to work on reducing our own consumption in my family and try to not waste so much food. It feels...obscene to waste any.

Several nights in the last month I've had a recurring dream where after I fall asleep I wake up in the middle of the night to see police and soldiers in black riot gear marching down the street with tanks and armored personnel carriers and as I'm trying to figure out what's going on I'm yanked from behind and cracked on the head with the butt of a rifle. When I wake up I'm in a concentration camp and it's dark again and I'm only with guys and none of us know where our kids or wives are and there are riots and people being beaten and killed.

That's when I wake up. I always have to check on my family and look out the window for a few minutes before I can fall asleep. It's not something that keeps me awake for gives me anxiety before I sleep but it still bothers the hell out of me when it happens.

• It's been a really mild summer so far. I've really enjoyed it actually, though I like it when it's stinking hot too, my wife and kids seem to enjoy the weather more so I'm happier too. A more conspiratorial mind would suggest that it's very rude of the CIA to crank the thermostat down low on their secret weather-controlling machines while Al Gore's movie on global warming is out running. ;)
• I cannot believe that Rear Admiral Harris, the man in charge of Gitmo would claim that the three suicides over the weekend were not acts of desparation but acts of warfare. The statement itself is so callous and offensive that I balled my hands into fists and bit my tounge to prevent a stream of obscenities from flying out of my mouth. I view it as indicative of how the administration views the people it detains, detentions, it pays to remember, that are viewed as without end or appeal. If there is not a more desparate situation you can think of, I'm not sure you're a thinking and feeling human being. I wish I could send out a big note to the world to say "We are not represented by this dickfaces anymore."
• In the last few days I have seen a flurry of "Impeach Bush" bumper stickers, and two new "Impeach Bush" books coming out, and an Impeach Bush website come out. Hell, even Garrison Kellior, Mr. Prarie Home Companion himself has been writing on Salon.com and recently wrote an article calling for Bush to be impeached. I am wondering how long it will take before voter referendums begin showing up. I doubt it will be long.

I knew I should have been worried when the only thing remaining between tacit approval of illegal activity done by our president and some accountability was ole Single-Bullet Specter, but I thought that maybe, JUST MAYBE, he'd find the gumption to start calling people out for their wrong-doing. I was wrong. He's decided to just give the president amnesty PLUS he's going to give all future administrations to wiretap Americans without a warrant.

The Left Coaster has more details if you're interested...

Seriously, this makes me want to smack the man.

Two 500-lb bombs were dropped on a house and wreckage flew so far I found a piece in my backyard. And yet, Zarqawi's body was miraculously preserved. How can it be?

I present you:

Top 10 Reasons Why Zarqawi's Body Survived the Bomb Blast

10. He always did love that quote about leaving a good looking corpse from Oscar Wilde
9. They said those bombs were smart, we just didn't know how smart
8. The bomb's didn't actually hit the house, Zarqawi and his buddies were lighting their farts after a night of binging on camel milk and hummus. oy!
7. Zarqawi had recently been dipped in teflon "for posterity's sake"
6. Madame Tussard works a night-shift in body reclamation for the Buquba Police Department
5. Vincent Price works a night-shift in body reclamation for the Buquba Police Department. (The bennies are out of sight! 401k the day you start and all the free medicine you can steal off the UN Medical Transport)
4. The CIA had no need for that Zarqawi body double they'd been growing at Langley, so they shot him and it's his pictures you're seeing instead.
3. It's really Ashton Kutcher and he's waiting until he's in front of President Bush to sit up and scream "YOU'VE BEEN PUNKD!"
2. Zarqawi had taken these pictures months ago for a Halloween card for Osama and we're just using those photos
1. Because the bombs never really fell at all, we only blew it up after the special forces got him out of there, tortured the hell out of him, and got what they needed from him.

I can't believe it, but someone on FoxNews.com has turned against Ann Coulter. The Queen of Screech recently got into a lot of hot water because she said that the 9/11 widows who were protesting the war were "enjoying their husband's deaths". Mike Straka, who writes the Grrr! column had this to say back.

I still don't comprehend why this blond harpy harbors so much hatred for people and taps into her hate to spew invective on anything with a pulse, but I suspect she feels put off by the fact that last year Michelle Malkin replaced her simultaneously in the "Makes the Most Outrageous Statements" and "Hottest Moonbat Conservative Woman" categories.

Back in 2004, Bush ran a series of billboards that posed the question: "Boots or Flip-Flops", his rather snarky bitch-slapping of John Kerry. That was the big issue in the election, wasn't it? Bush was going to stay the course. Bush was going to be a steady hand on the helm. No wavering here. I guess the fear was that Kerry might change his mind or pause for reflection, which as we know is not what this president does. He's the decider. He decides things, without the news, without input, with just his gut and balls as a guide. The John Wayne president, as it were. This man is made of granite. Or is he? I would like to present the following thoughts for your consideration:

• Bush said that we should keep nuclear technology out of the hands of rogue states, but when we found out that the chief nuclear scientist in Pakistan was blithely selling all he knew to everyone with some pocket change to jingle, we just shrugged our shoulders. Flip-Flop
• Bush claimed we were going into Iraq because they had WMDs. Then it was because Saddam was a bad man (he really was an awful piece of shit, no argument there), and then it was to promote democracy in the Middle East. Flip-Flop
• Bush claimed we'd never deal with a terrorist state, and that Iran is in the Axis of Evil. Now we are offering them economic incentives and opening up the chance of diplomatic ties. Flip-Flop
• We were helping the anti-Islamic warlords in Somalia with money and arms. Now that they've been soundly defeated, we've offered to work with the Islamist forces in Somalia. Flip-Flop

Who's Flip-Flopping Now Bitch?

Thanks to hebedesign on flickr for the right to use the picture in this story.

Charles Rangel, Democrat from New York, would like to reinstate the draft (PDF Link). He would like to make every person between the ages of 18 and 42 serve a two-year stint in the military, or some other form of civilian service.

Rangel's been on this kick for a while, trying to reinstate the draft, and I've never been sure why, as I've never heard him give a good answer when asked.

The Pentagon is rewriting its detainee policies to remove any and all mention of the Geneva Convention because it "would restrict the United States' ability to question detainees". It doesn't restrict the ability to question detainees, it protects them from getting electrodes strapped to their testicles or raped repeatedly or any manner of horrible actions in the process of getting questioned.

I feel like instituting another edition of my Now & Then. 30 years ago we decried the Vietnamese for their horrible horrible treatment of American POWs and the ways in which the Viet Cong ignored the Geneva Conventions. Now, we wish to emulate the very behavior we deplored and throw the conventions out the window. I'm beginning to wonder what country I'm living in.

(Link)

Other than they both have really bad hair, are an embarassment to almost everyone, and really annoying groupies? Dave White breaks it down for you.

Given the recent Republican smokescreen, known as the immigration debate, whereby the Republican party has suddenly started screeching about how WE MUST DO SOMETHING NOW to protect our borders (and save Republican poll numbers and the Republican majority in Congress), I find this clip very funny. Let me set it up for you. The president's at the border and speaking about how we're going to upgrade the border. Watch the fence in the background behind Bush.

As I'm sure you're aware, Canadian Law Enforcement, working with British and American intelligence and law enforcement officials arrested 17 individuals involved in a plot to blow up several large symbolic targets in Canada. Reports indicate now that at least one of the people involved was from Bangladesh.

A year ago I stated in a post:

More terrorists will now come from places like India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. This is occurring now. In western nations, the U.S., Canada, across Europe, desi are a quickly accepted minority, especially in big cities. As more people come from the sub-continent, our comfort level with them grows. This can work against us though. There are many muslim in that region, and some of the more extreme forms of Islam come from that area. Consider, for example, the Deobandi form of Islam, which is what the Taliban practiced. It is Indian in origin.

I wish I were not correct, and I hope that my being correct does not lead to more people being hurt or killed.

I stumbled across this tonight. There's part of me that can't believe this guy is real, much less that there are two guys like this.

Let it run for a few minutes, it gets better after about minute 2.

I know that many people are already pointing at it, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr's article in Rolling Stone on the theft of the 2004 Presidential election from the voters makes compelling reading. The problem is that the 31% of people left in the country that like Bush won't believe it for a second claiming it's propaganda from the "liberal MSM" and the ~30% of liberals in the country already suspected this, and the rest of the folks in the middle don't give shit any more.

Still, I suggest that you read it.

Thirty years ago, the President was all but hanged in the streets by Congress for trying to illegally wiretap a single office.

Today, the President is performing illegal surveillence on almost all Americans, and the Congress wants to give him a free pass to do it all the time.

I guess they don't grow politicians with balls anymore.