There is more than blood in the water for the Republican Party, but the Dems still aren't taking this HUGE opportunity to speak out...at least from what I've seen.
The Democratic front-runners for '08 are failing to show us anything right now, but there may be someone that is going to come out of left field to lead this party. I think that person could very well be Al Gore.
From About.com by Deborah White:
There's something about Al Gore, the 45th US Vice President, that we can't seem to let go of. Maybe it's because he was right on just about everything in the 2000 Presidential campaign. Maybe it's because he was the first Democratic leader to publicly speak out against the Iraq War. Maybe it's because of his persistent wisdom on global warming and the environment. Maybe it's because we love a risk-taker and a visionary.....
Or maybe it's because we can relate to his imperfections...his sometimes-goofy, self-deprecating humor, his Saturday Night Live-spoofed staidness, his endearing affection for Tipper. We definitely admire his tenacity in taking a tough punch and yet moving on.
And maybe we're righteously angry that he got cheated in the 2000 election. And even more, that the United States got horribly cheated.
From AlGore-o8.com:
The last four years have been a test of our national leadership, and only one person has passed that test: Al Gore. While others jumped on the right wing bandwagon until Bush’s approval ratings fell under 50%, Gore spoke out fearlessly, becoming the conscience of the Democratic Party. Al Gore first voiced his opposition to the invasion of Iraq and the Patriot Act before Congress voted on them. In a series of landmark speeches before Moveon.org, Gore has blasted the Bush Administration for its corporate corruption, environmental abuses, their assault on our civil rights and their numerous campaigns to mislead the American people.
In and out of office, Al Gore has proven that he is the kind of President we will need to repair the damage done by the Bush Administration.
“There has always been a debate over the destiny of this nation between those who believed they were entitled to govern because of their station in life, and those who believed that the people were sovereign. That distinction remains as strong as ever today. In every race this November, the question voters must answer is, How do we make sure that political power is used for the benefit of the many, rather than the few?...
Standing up for the people, not the powerful was the right choice in 2000. In fact, it is the ground of the Democratic party's being, our meaning and our mission.
The suggestion from some in our party that we should no longer speak that truth, especially at a time like this, strikes me as bad politics and wrong in principle.” - - From "Broken Promises and Political Deception" by Al Gore, August 3, 2002.
There is a hard truth that we Democrats must face: not all of our leaders share our values. Not all of our leaders value the grassroots as anything more than a source of campaign funding - - and votes which they cannot lose, no matter what. They condescend to talk our talk on the campaign trail, and instantly turn their backs on us once they are safely in office.
Is that the kind of Democrat you want as our 2008 nominee?
That’s the kind of Democrat you’ll get if you wait until the 2008 primaries to get involved. Because that’s the kind of Democrat that corporate special interests want to run. They’ll put their money behind a candidate who won’t rock their boat - - a candidate who will always stand up for the powerful, not the people.
The only thing that can stop them is you.
Every flood begins with a single rain drop. Every single person who stands up now, adds to the power of the whole. Together, we can ensure that our 2008 nominee is a real Democrat - - a man whose proven track record of visionary leadership on the environment, foreign policy, national security, the economy, civil rights and technology puts him head and shoulders above the rest - - a man who has never stopped fighting for us.
Take the next step - - join us in demanding that now, more than ever, America needs a real Democrat in the White House.
Now, more than ever, America needs Al Gore.
From Lizzy - What do you guys think?
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Anti-Bush, Anti-War, Pro-Israel
I was unable to attend the March in Washington this weekend, so I watched a lot of it on CSPAN. I don't know if it was the poor coverage of the event, or what, but I was not happy with the speeches against Israel, and I did not appreciate the organizers letting the anti-Semites into the event.
I never thought I would include anything Dennis Miller said on my blog, but this was brilliant. He recently said the following about the Mid East situation on his show: (He is not Jewish .)
"A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need."
Here we go:
The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: there are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israeli's won the land in the 1967 war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians."
As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the "Palestinians," weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation."
So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" any more to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths until someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs Who Can't Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama of Eternal Struggle and Death." I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN.
How about this, then: "Adjacent Jew-Haters."
Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living.
That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course --that's where the real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel.
Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it - for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something.
It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Mideast. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.
Chew this around and spit it out: five hundred million Arabs; five Million Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals.
Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.
My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not.
Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab State into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children?
Disgusting.
No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.
I understand that with vital operations in Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a roomful of super models who've just had their drugs taken away.
However, in any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight. We've already lost some. After September 11th, our president told us and the world he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day) start to do the same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint.
If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and east of the Jordan.
Please feel free to pass this along to your friends. Walk in peace! Be Happy! Have a wonderful life!
I never thought I would include anything Dennis Miller said on my blog, but this was brilliant. He recently said the following about the Mid East situation on his show: (He is not Jewish .)
"A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all Americans who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need."
Here we go:
The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: there are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israeli's won the land in the 1967 war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians."
As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the "Palestinians," weeping for their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation."
So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" any more to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths until someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs Who Can't Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama of Eternal Struggle and Death." I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN.
How about this, then: "Adjacent Jew-Haters."
Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living.
That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel. They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course --that's where the real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel.
Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it - for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something.
It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Mideast. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.
Chew this around and spit it out: five hundred million Arabs; five Million Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals.
Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.
My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it. Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not.
Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab State into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children?
Disgusting.
No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.
I understand that with vital operations in Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a roomful of super models who've just had their drugs taken away.
However, in any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight. We've already lost some. After September 11th, our president told us and the world he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day) start to do the same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint.
If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and east of the Jordan.
Please feel free to pass this along to your friends. Walk in peace! Be Happy! Have a wonderful life!
Friday, September 23, 2005
You can tell a lot about a person from the way they treat animals.
My best friend, Michelle, recently lost one of her beloved dogs. I have lost three dogs over my lifetime, so I know how it feels. It's heartbreaking.
Throughout my childhood & early teens, we had Taffy, a white toy poodle. Like all poodles, she was very smart. She did bite a few people from time to time, but in our eyes, they just added to her charm.
At 16, I got my first pug, Bentley. He was a great dog that insisted on taking long walks - even through the Minnesota snow. I still grieve for him as his life was cut far too short.
At 29, I got my second pug, Emily Beth. She truly was like a daughter, and will always hold a very special place in my heart. I cooked extra lean hamburger meat to add to her super-premium dog food everyday, because that was the way she liked it. I lost her a couple years ago, and still think about her everyday.
The reason I'm blogging about the great dogs in my life that have crossed into the Rainbow Bridge, is this piece that Michelle sent me. This one really got to me.
For Alamo:
A boy and his dog in Bushland, by M. Kane Jeeves
Last week, my wife and I lost our best friend to cancer, a fluffy Westie, “Laughing Gravy, ” named after an old Laurel and Hardy film. He’d been with us 16 of our 17 years of marriage.
My wife cooked his meals, as she does for our other two dogs, after she found out the contents of corporate dog food were notso hotso. When Gravy went off his food? I barbecued for him. We hand fed him. I’d put on Dean Martin songs and dance and sing around his bowl to give him his food and his pills.
You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat animals. My wife cooked. I sang and danced.
In his youth, George W. Bush blew up frogs.
As an adult, to appear vaguely human, he carries around his Scottie, Barney, like a log, dropping him on his head from time to time. Is it any wonder he has no idea what he has done to the people of the Gulf Coast in terms of Katrina? Is it any wonder he had no idea what he has unleashed in terms of the catastrophe known as Iraq? 1,904 Americans dead. Countless Iraqis.
He has no depth, no feeling, no sense of self. But, he uses a dog to make him seem human. A regular guy.
It’s a family tradition.
After all, it was his mother, Babs, who used her dog Millie as a shill to sell a book. She passed herself off to the public as the ultimate “Aunt Bea.”
But, her real self bubbles up every so often. And it ain’t Aunt Bea.
It was Dubya’s mother (dubbed by Jeb as “The Enforcer”), who said, before the illegal invasion of Iraq: “Why should we hear about body bags and death and how many? It’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?” It was his mother who said, after the devastation brought by Katrina and after visiting the homeless barely clinging to their minds in the Houston Astrodome. “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them.”
Then she added the capper: “What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is that they all want to stay in Texas.”
Whoops!
Dubya is a bad seed, spawned by other bad seeds. His family has never been about feeling or compassion, but about making a buck…at any cost.
His mother, Barbara, didn’t attend her own mother’s funeral. After George’s younger sister died at the age of three, and he was just seven? She went golfing the next day. George never even knew his sister was terminally ill. The rest of the neighbors did, though. They wouldn’t let their children near the girl, fearing that leukemia was contagious.
George’s Dad, George I, is a former CIA guy who facilitated dictators getting U.S. guns and ammo and, then, when President, pardoned all who were accused of concocting the Reagan era’s Iran-Contra scam. George I, of course, was innocent of any wrong-doing because he was out of the loop… as the veep and a former CIA guy. Wanna buy a bridge?
Dubya’s grandfather and great-grandfather, Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker, through the Union Banking Company and W. A. Harriman and Company, raised funds for Hitler to the tune of $50 million between 1924 and 1942. It was only in 1942, when the government seized Union Banking Company assets under the Trading With the Enemy Act, that George Walker and Prescott Bush stopped tossing money Hitler’s way.
This is a family worthy of Caligula…or Masterpiece Theater.
When the hurricane hit New Orleans, and people were drowning, George was literally eating cake at a previously set public appearance. He gasbagged about the great things going on in Iraq, comparing Iraq to W.W. II and inferring that he was today’s FDR.
The next day? When New Orleans was inundated? He stuck to his political schedule, pushing his idiotic domestic policies and, again, gasbagging about his triumphs in Iraq.
When it became clear that the FEMA and the Homeland Security laddies were running around with their pants around their ankles (For Christ’s sake, Homeland Security’s Michael Chertoff was talking about Avian Flu at a previously scheduled event while New Orleans was sinking deeper and deeper into murky water after massive levee ruptures twenty four hours after the storm made landfall. Chertoff didn’t even consider declaring Katrina a national disaster for 36 long hours.), Bush did…nothing.
Eventually, Dubya got into the “Rove” mode, realized everyone had been asleep at the wheel and went down to the South and hugged a lot of black people with his shirtsleeves rolled up. He tried to look like he cared. He joked about getting soused in New Orleans as a youth and vowed to rebuild Senator Trent Lott’s house. His polls plunged. So, he went back there, again, to hug a lot more black people. His polls plunged, again. Eventually, he gave a Disneyland speech from New Orleans from a dry area of town in Jackson Square, lit by Hollywood experts using generators flown into town for a few hours.
His poll numbers continue to sink.
So, where are we, now?
Well, the first thing Bush did, aside from awarding billions of dollars’ worth of no-bid contracts to Halliburton and its ilk to rebuild the Big Easy, was to suspend a Federal law dating back to 1931 that would guarantee American workers the average rate of pay that prevails in the reconstruction regions. It should be noted that in the Katrina-devastated section of the country, construction wages are notoriously low as is.
Someone at Halliburton is dancing a jig, right now, crooning “Money Makes the World Go Round” from the soundtrack of “Cabaret.” Essentially, Bush has just given them the right to hire workers at coolie wages.
We have a corrupt, unfeeling President, surrounded by corrupt, unfeeling sycophants, who are trying to spin death as a GOOD thing. New Orleans will be bigger and better than ever! Lots of jobs will be created! That next Mardi Gras is gonna be bitchin’!
Meanwhile, we have another hurricane, Rita, spinning towards the Gulf Coast.
We have Republicans blaming the poor for not getting out of the way of the storm in time.
We have Fox News bobble-heads blaming, of course, Clinton, for not strengthening New Orleans’s levees.
We have right-wing pundits blaming any Democrat in sight.
We have a President saying that he’ll spend all that it takes to rebuild New Orleans and ignoring the deficit while shoe-horning in every PNAC wet dream imaginable from school vouchers to the corporate take-over of public schools to free enterprise zones as part of his plan.
We have Bush’s top federal procurement official in charge of Katrina contracts, David Safavian, resigning on Friday and getting arrested on Monday for lying and obstructing an FBI criminal investigation into “Honest” Tom DeLay’s old cronie Jack Abramoff’s dealings with the federal government.
We have Bush flying back and forth from D.C. to the water-ravaged sections of the country, talking about “armies of compassion,” which is about as moronic a phrase as “A-Bomb of love.”
And, if these photo op trips don’t boost his ratings? One of these days, he’ll bring his dog.
Me?
I’m grieving, right now.
I’m grieving for my dog.
I’m grieving for my bestest, oldest friend.
And I’m grieving for my country.
A country destroyed by a man named Bush.
A man who doesn’t know how to grieve.
I danced for my dog to get him to eat when he was sick.
Bush blew up frogs for the sheer fun of it.
You can tell a lot about a person from the way they treat animals.
Throughout my childhood & early teens, we had Taffy, a white toy poodle. Like all poodles, she was very smart. She did bite a few people from time to time, but in our eyes, they just added to her charm.
At 16, I got my first pug, Bentley. He was a great dog that insisted on taking long walks - even through the Minnesota snow. I still grieve for him as his life was cut far too short.
At 29, I got my second pug, Emily Beth. She truly was like a daughter, and will always hold a very special place in my heart. I cooked extra lean hamburger meat to add to her super-premium dog food everyday, because that was the way she liked it. I lost her a couple years ago, and still think about her everyday.
The reason I'm blogging about the great dogs in my life that have crossed into the Rainbow Bridge, is this piece that Michelle sent me. This one really got to me.
For Alamo:
A boy and his dog in Bushland, by M. Kane Jeeves
Last week, my wife and I lost our best friend to cancer, a fluffy Westie, “Laughing Gravy, ” named after an old Laurel and Hardy film. He’d been with us 16 of our 17 years of marriage.
My wife cooked his meals, as she does for our other two dogs, after she found out the contents of corporate dog food were notso hotso. When Gravy went off his food? I barbecued for him. We hand fed him. I’d put on Dean Martin songs and dance and sing around his bowl to give him his food and his pills.
You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat animals. My wife cooked. I sang and danced.
In his youth, George W. Bush blew up frogs.
As an adult, to appear vaguely human, he carries around his Scottie, Barney, like a log, dropping him on his head from time to time. Is it any wonder he has no idea what he has done to the people of the Gulf Coast in terms of Katrina? Is it any wonder he had no idea what he has unleashed in terms of the catastrophe known as Iraq? 1,904 Americans dead. Countless Iraqis.
He has no depth, no feeling, no sense of self. But, he uses a dog to make him seem human. A regular guy.
It’s a family tradition.
After all, it was his mother, Babs, who used her dog Millie as a shill to sell a book. She passed herself off to the public as the ultimate “Aunt Bea.”
But, her real self bubbles up every so often. And it ain’t Aunt Bea.
It was Dubya’s mother (dubbed by Jeb as “The Enforcer”), who said, before the illegal invasion of Iraq: “Why should we hear about body bags and death and how many? It’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?” It was his mother who said, after the devastation brought by Katrina and after visiting the homeless barely clinging to their minds in the Houston Astrodome. “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them.”
Then she added the capper: “What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is that they all want to stay in Texas.”
Whoops!
Dubya is a bad seed, spawned by other bad seeds. His family has never been about feeling or compassion, but about making a buck…at any cost.
His mother, Barbara, didn’t attend her own mother’s funeral. After George’s younger sister died at the age of three, and he was just seven? She went golfing the next day. George never even knew his sister was terminally ill. The rest of the neighbors did, though. They wouldn’t let their children near the girl, fearing that leukemia was contagious.
George’s Dad, George I, is a former CIA guy who facilitated dictators getting U.S. guns and ammo and, then, when President, pardoned all who were accused of concocting the Reagan era’s Iran-Contra scam. George I, of course, was innocent of any wrong-doing because he was out of the loop… as the veep and a former CIA guy. Wanna buy a bridge?
Dubya’s grandfather and great-grandfather, Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker, through the Union Banking Company and W. A. Harriman and Company, raised funds for Hitler to the tune of $50 million between 1924 and 1942. It was only in 1942, when the government seized Union Banking Company assets under the Trading With the Enemy Act, that George Walker and Prescott Bush stopped tossing money Hitler’s way.
This is a family worthy of Caligula…or Masterpiece Theater.
When the hurricane hit New Orleans, and people were drowning, George was literally eating cake at a previously set public appearance. He gasbagged about the great things going on in Iraq, comparing Iraq to W.W. II and inferring that he was today’s FDR.
The next day? When New Orleans was inundated? He stuck to his political schedule, pushing his idiotic domestic policies and, again, gasbagging about his triumphs in Iraq.
When it became clear that the FEMA and the Homeland Security laddies were running around with their pants around their ankles (For Christ’s sake, Homeland Security’s Michael Chertoff was talking about Avian Flu at a previously scheduled event while New Orleans was sinking deeper and deeper into murky water after massive levee ruptures twenty four hours after the storm made landfall. Chertoff didn’t even consider declaring Katrina a national disaster for 36 long hours.), Bush did…nothing.
Eventually, Dubya got into the “Rove” mode, realized everyone had been asleep at the wheel and went down to the South and hugged a lot of black people with his shirtsleeves rolled up. He tried to look like he cared. He joked about getting soused in New Orleans as a youth and vowed to rebuild Senator Trent Lott’s house. His polls plunged. So, he went back there, again, to hug a lot more black people. His polls plunged, again. Eventually, he gave a Disneyland speech from New Orleans from a dry area of town in Jackson Square, lit by Hollywood experts using generators flown into town for a few hours.
His poll numbers continue to sink.
So, where are we, now?
Well, the first thing Bush did, aside from awarding billions of dollars’ worth of no-bid contracts to Halliburton and its ilk to rebuild the Big Easy, was to suspend a Federal law dating back to 1931 that would guarantee American workers the average rate of pay that prevails in the reconstruction regions. It should be noted that in the Katrina-devastated section of the country, construction wages are notoriously low as is.
Someone at Halliburton is dancing a jig, right now, crooning “Money Makes the World Go Round” from the soundtrack of “Cabaret.” Essentially, Bush has just given them the right to hire workers at coolie wages.
We have a corrupt, unfeeling President, surrounded by corrupt, unfeeling sycophants, who are trying to spin death as a GOOD thing. New Orleans will be bigger and better than ever! Lots of jobs will be created! That next Mardi Gras is gonna be bitchin’!
Meanwhile, we have another hurricane, Rita, spinning towards the Gulf Coast.
We have Republicans blaming the poor for not getting out of the way of the storm in time.
We have Fox News bobble-heads blaming, of course, Clinton, for not strengthening New Orleans’s levees.
We have right-wing pundits blaming any Democrat in sight.
We have a President saying that he’ll spend all that it takes to rebuild New Orleans and ignoring the deficit while shoe-horning in every PNAC wet dream imaginable from school vouchers to the corporate take-over of public schools to free enterprise zones as part of his plan.
We have Bush’s top federal procurement official in charge of Katrina contracts, David Safavian, resigning on Friday and getting arrested on Monday for lying and obstructing an FBI criminal investigation into “Honest” Tom DeLay’s old cronie Jack Abramoff’s dealings with the federal government.
We have Bush flying back and forth from D.C. to the water-ravaged sections of the country, talking about “armies of compassion,” which is about as moronic a phrase as “A-Bomb of love.”
And, if these photo op trips don’t boost his ratings? One of these days, he’ll bring his dog.
Me?
I’m grieving, right now.
I’m grieving for my dog.
I’m grieving for my bestest, oldest friend.
And I’m grieving for my country.
A country destroyed by a man named Bush.
A man who doesn’t know how to grieve.
I danced for my dog to get him to eat when he was sick.
Bush blew up frogs for the sheer fun of it.
You can tell a lot about a person from the way they treat animals.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Monday, September 19, 2005
In cyberspace, no one can hear you vote
Photo: http://homepage.mac.com/rcareaga/diebold/adworks.htm
Here's another story not being covered by the lazy, one story at a time, mainstream media. And why should they? It's only one of the biggest ongoing travesties of our time. If you don't believe him, check his sources. It's real.
From The Brad Blog:
* EXCLUSIVE! * A DIEBOLD INSIDER SPEAKS!
DIEB-THROAT : 'Diebold System One of Greatest Threats Democracy Has Ever Known' Identifies U.S. Homeland Security 'Cyber Alert' Prior to '04 Election Warning Votes Can be 'Modified Remotely' via 'Undocumented Backdoor' in Central Tabulator Software.
In exclusive stunning admissions to The Brad Blog some 11 months after the 2004 Presidential Election, a "Diebold Insider" is now finally speaking out for the first time about the alarming security flaws within Diebold, Inc's electronic voting systems, software and machinery. The source is acknowledging that the company's "upper management" -- as well as "top government officials" -- were keenly aware of the "undocumented backdoor" in Diebold's main "GEM Central Tabulator" software well prior to the 2004 election. A branch of the Federal Government even posted a security warning on the Internet.
Pointing to a little-noticed "Cyber Security Alert" issued by the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the source inside Diebold -- who "for the time being" is requesting anonymity due to a continuing sensitive relationship with the company -- is charging that Diebold's technicians, including at least one of its lead programmers, knew about the security flaw and that the company instructed them to keep quiet about it."
Diebold threatened violators with immediate dismissal," the insider, who we'll call DIEB-THROAT, explained recently to The Brad Blog via email. "In 2005, after one newly hired member of Diebold's technical staff pointed out the security flaw, he was criticized and isolated."
In phone interviews, DIEB-THROAT confirmed that the matters were well known within the company, but that a "culture of fear" had been developed to assure that employees, including technicians, vendors and programmers kept those issues to themselves.
The "Cyber Security Alert" from US-CERT was issued in late August of 2004 and is still available online via the US-CERT website. The alert warns that "A vulnerability exists due to an undocumented backdoor account, which could [sic: allow] a local or remote authenticated malicious user [sic: to] modify votes.
"The alert, assessed to be of "MEDIUM" risk on the US-CERT security bulletin, goes on to add that there is "No workaround or patch available at time of publishing."
"Diebold's upper management was aware of access to the voter file defect before the 2004 election - but did nothing to correct it," the source explained.
more...
Friday, September 16, 2005
Take a hint, George
I love Bill Maher. I look forward to his HBO show every Friday. This is what he said on last week's show (thanks, Brian.)
Why Don't We All Have a Recall?
C'mon, Mr. President, it's time for you to quit while you're behind.
America must recall the president. That's what this country needs: a good old-fashioned California-style recall election, complete with petitions, finger-pointing and a ridiculous cast of replacement candidates.
Just like Gray Davis had to do here in Califorina, George W. Bush must now defend his job against... Russel Crowe! Because at this point, I want a leader who will throw a phone at somebody. Naomi Campbell can be vice president -- only phone-throwers, people!
Come on, Mr. President, this can't be fun for you anymore.
You can't spend more of our money because you used it all up. And you can't start another war, because you've used up the troops. And when it comes to reacting to hurricanes, you made your old man look like St. Francis of Assissi.
Your job has turned into the Bush family nightmare: helping poor black people.
The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out and no one's speaking to you -- mission accomplished!
Now it's time to do what you do best: lose interest and walk away, like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team.
Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or spaceman?
Oh, I know what you're saying: "Hey, I've got three more years, and there's so many other things I want to... touch."... Please don't.
I know, I know, there's so much left to do: war with Venezuela, eliminating the sales tax on yachts and diamonds, turning the space program over to the church, handing healthcare over to Haliburton and Social Security to Fannie Mae, giving embryos the vote.
But none of that's going to happen now. Why? Because you're the first American president to lose a whole city. Jimmy Carter never lost a city. Herbert Hoover was a lousy president, but even he didn't concede an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes.
You've performed so poorly, you should give yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. On your watch we've lost almost all of our allies, the budget surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the city of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky.
I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.
Yes. God does speak to you. And right now, he's saying: "Take a hint!"
Why Don't We All Have a Recall?
C'mon, Mr. President, it's time for you to quit while you're behind.
America must recall the president. That's what this country needs: a good old-fashioned California-style recall election, complete with petitions, finger-pointing and a ridiculous cast of replacement candidates.
Just like Gray Davis had to do here in Califorina, George W. Bush must now defend his job against... Russel Crowe! Because at this point, I want a leader who will throw a phone at somebody. Naomi Campbell can be vice president -- only phone-throwers, people!
Come on, Mr. President, this can't be fun for you anymore.
You can't spend more of our money because you used it all up. And you can't start another war, because you've used up the troops. And when it comes to reacting to hurricanes, you made your old man look like St. Francis of Assissi.
Your job has turned into the Bush family nightmare: helping poor black people.
The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out and no one's speaking to you -- mission accomplished!
Now it's time to do what you do best: lose interest and walk away, like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team.
Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or spaceman?
Oh, I know what you're saying: "Hey, I've got three more years, and there's so many other things I want to... touch."... Please don't.
I know, I know, there's so much left to do: war with Venezuela, eliminating the sales tax on yachts and diamonds, turning the space program over to the church, handing healthcare over to Haliburton and Social Security to Fannie Mae, giving embryos the vote.
But none of that's going to happen now. Why? Because you're the first American president to lose a whole city. Jimmy Carter never lost a city. Herbert Hoover was a lousy president, but even he didn't concede an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes.
You've performed so poorly, you should give yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. On your watch we've lost almost all of our allies, the budget surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the city of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky.
I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.
Yes. God does speak to you. And right now, he's saying: "Take a hint!"
Thursday, September 15, 2005
The facts Dubya didn't mention tonight
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