Cowboy up!

Oakland isn't going to stop the Sox murder's row of an offense at Fenway, but it's still not going to keep me from biting my nails.

Nobody saw this coming. Nope. Never!

Dude, Where's My Country?

Some people think we should wait until November 2004 to get Bush out of office. Not Michael Moore.

Michael has a new book coming out tuesday, "Dude, Where's My Country?." Here's part of the author's description from an email he sent out:

"They have taken these measures because I have written a book that seeks not to defeat the Bush people next year, but to have them removed from Washington right now. I know, I’m not asking for much. But I have spent the better part of the past year researching and writing this new book, and when you read it you’ll see why the current criminal investigation of the White House for outing a CIA agent in revenge is, in my opinion, just the tip of the iceberg. I can only hope that my book will make a small contribution toward that day when we’ll see one long perp walk of administration officials in handcuffs being led out of the White House and into a waiting paddy wagon. Like I said, I’m not asking for much."

The book is already at number one on Amazon, (but screw Amazon and goto your favorite local and independently owned bookstore to get it.) This will probably be the must-read book before the election, and hopefully it influences the election into having a different Republican candidate, one that's not behind bars. We all know that Bush is a criminal and a disgrace to this country, and I'm personally sick ofbeing labeled as unpatriotic by the powers-that-be if you say anything against King George the Second. Who wants to wait until the election to remove him from office? He fixed the last one to get into office! (My apologies to any Democrat readers, but Nader is not at fault. He was a factor, but not the biggest factor.) Waiting until November 2004 leaves Bush with over a year to place this country deeper in the hole. He needs to go NOW.

(rall.com)

So, I got my DSL line back. Woop woop! Now all I need is some heat upstairs and I'll be a happy camper, seeing that it's 35 degrees out right now.

Posting will be light until I get home tonight, and hopefully I'll have a space heater with me. Here's a link you can entertain yourself with: Freeway Blogger.

Rush Rush Rush

I have new found hope for this nation after the treatment Rush Limbaugh has received this week. Rush couldn't even last a month with NFL fans. Think about it: people who paint their chests and rip off their shirts to cheer on their time in the dead of winter in places such as Green Bay, they think Rush is nuts! That's like geting kicked out of Guns 'n' Roses for being too much of a drug addict! (And it seems like he's working on the drugs part.)

Hey Rush, if you ever get hired for TV again (maybe you can get together with Michael Savage and do a show on racism and the media, I'd watch it!), try not to insult your core audience with baseless comments.

Bonus! - Fark headline of the day: "Following emergency surgery to remove his foot from his mouth, Rush Limbaugh resigns from ESPN"

Suckball

Skip this if you don't care about baseball.

God, when did the Red Sox start poppin suck pills? And does Manny have money on not driving home a run or something? He only left a bazillion runners on last night. He's being paid a bazillion dollars for what again..? Somebody remind me.. Oh yeah, to produce runs! But, but, he got a hit today! Oooooh! I'm shocked that I haven't started drinking yet.

New Zealanders have the best billboards

In New Zealand, an activist group of mothers against genetically engineered foods have been putting these billboards up. In case you can't tell from the picture, the woman has four breasts being milked by cow milking machine, with "GE" branded on her rump.

The group responsible for the billboards, Mothers Against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment (Madge), put up the billboards to stir debate about GE foods. They said that the billboards are meant to be disturbing, but only "stupid white men" should be offended. Heh.

Oh, that economy..

What's the required annual income for two parents need to make in order to raise a family of four in San Francisco?: At least $70,204.

I can't believe the Red Sox lost last night. I can't believe that I stayed up until 2:00am and the game still wasn't finihsed, only to wake up and find out that the bullpen is still blowing it. Sigh.

I try not to talk about sports all that much in the blog, but since the Sox are in the playoffs, and most people know how rabid Sox fans are, you might get a mouthful, a couple of profanities, and wishes to have the heads of Embree and Kim on a stake. Your only hope to see the baseball chatter stop is a Sox early exit from the playoffs, but then that would leave me too depressed to post anything.

Unbelievable

Philip Terzian, an associate editor of the Providence Journal, has a column in today's paper about people who hate Bush. He proceeds to overlook very credible gripes against Bush and, instead of researching the anti-Bush claims he listed in his column, he comes to the conclusion that people hate Bush because of his voice. Yes folks, this is what passes for quality journalism in 2003:

I was visiting a historic New England city not long ago, and accompanied an acquaintance from South Carolina on a shopping expedition. A clerk in one store was brisk, in the standard local custom; but when the visitor opened her mouth and revealed her Dixie upbringing, the clerk's manner turned suddenly terse, if not downright offensive. Embarrassed as I was by this incident, it suggested one possible explanation for the irrational hostility that George W. Bush seems to inspire in his critics.

Terzian's ridiculous piece drawls on to say, "Bush inspires levels of invective and rage that equal, or exceed, the most fevered right-wing rhetoric about Bill Clinton." Wow, what country is this man living in? You would figure that a member of the mainstream media would know that some media organizations exist, and make money, simply bashing the Clintons. Bill Clinton was so hated by the right that, three years out of office, they are still talking about the man, they are constantly hounding his wife, and they have published books trying to hold Clinton directly responsible for 9/11. Newsmax.com, in a low, classless blow that was competely undeserved, wasted no time bashing Clinton after 9/11. They couldn't even wait 24 hours to blame him for the tragedy.

So what are the reasons Terzian sites for the "levels of invective" Bush faces?:

There are books and Web sites devoted to revealing the Bush family's complicity in murder and global terrorism; it is an article of faith that the president is rapidly militarizing America and/or dismantling the New Deal; Dr. Howard Dean is running for office because "what's at stake in this election is democracy itself."

If you ask me, that list is much too short. Regardless, the reasons for "invective"against Bush are quite plausible. Maybe if Terzian could to do his job as a journalist and research the claims from the anti-Bush crowd, he wouldn't come to the conclusion that Bush is hated because of his "voice".

"...Bush family's complicity in murder and global terrorism." Maybe this is because Prescott Bush sold Nazi Germany Bonds in America from 1924-42, well into World War II. As for global terrorism, the previous link discusses George H.W. Bush's dealings with drug running and terrorism in Latin American countries while he was director of the CIA, and perhaps people forget a little thing called the Iran Contra Affair that happened when he was Vice President. Let's also not forget the Bush family business dealings with the bin Laden's.

"...The president is rapidly militarizing America and/or dismantling the New Deal." Do I even need to provide links for this one? Revoking the Estate Tax along with other massive tax cuts to the rich, the PATRIOT Act, wanting to privatize Social Secuirty, underfunding social welfare programs, and a ballooning military budget. All of these things have been attempted, some done, under Bush's administration.

"Dr. Howard Dean is running for office because 'what's at stake in this election is democracy itself.'" Terzian actually replied to this point in his column, "Democrats are frustrated about Al Gore's narrow defeat in Florida, but their fury should be directed at Ralph Nader." Hmm, what else [florida] should [florida] come [florida] to [florida] mind? [Florida!] Nevermind the fact that the Democrats have blamed Nader, and they continue to blame Nader (which, in my opinion, is undeserved). Terzian appears to want to rewrite history by implying that Democrats somehow aren't mad at Nader. Terzian also needs to read a book called Jews for Buchanan, an unbiased account of what really happened in Florida and how Bush stole the election. The fact that even the mere suggestion of the truth about the election of 2000 is now akin to Bush hatred shows you just how much of a grip the right has on our media.

This, unfortunately, is the Providence Journal's idea of "journalism." It's also a good illustration of just how delusional the right is, making up silly excuses to tag the anti-Bush crowd with and actually believe it. They could just do some research and find out the facts, but I guess that's too much to ask.

Plamegate

The White House's outing of Valerie Plame is becoming a major story. I will offer little commentary on it for 2 reasons: my DSL line is still down, and other blogs are doing a better job then I ever could with my limited Internet access. Atrios is still doing the best job covering this story and sticking it to the Bush administration, his reporting has been making a splash with the Democrats and has even been copied by Drudge.

I did find one curious thing on a Canadian news site, an article they hav on this story features a picture of Karl Rove. You hardly ever hear about Rove in the US media. Why is that? How much power can we assume this man has?

An oddity of Capitalism

Do you remember, a few years back, some nut job who claims to own the moon, our Solar System's eight other planets and their satellites, put up a website where you could buy land on these celestial bodies? Remember that crackpot?

He's a millionaire now.

It's just wrong...

Defining Terrorism

Philosofialogos over at Ponderings & Prose recently sent me a link to an article where Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez accused the US of harboring terrorists against the Venezuelan state, inciting that the Bush administration is being hypocritical in its stance on terrorism. There is evidence that the White House met with and supported Venezuelans who attempted to the failed coup to throw Chavez out of office, a coup which the Bush administration publicly said that they were in favor of, even though Chavez was democratically elected by free Venezuelans who have a right to choose their own government and who they want to lead it. Chavez also claims to have evidence that the CIA would have tried to assassinate him if he took a plane to the US to speak at the United Nations a couple of weeks back.

Chavez's comments bring a few interesting thoughts to my mind: How can terrorism be defined? Is the Bush administrations stance against terrorism be better defined as an extension of protecting goverment interests? Just how much terrorism has the US supported? Against whom? And for how long has terrorism and the support of it been a part of US policy?

The answer to the first question is subjective, and since all the other questions depend upon the answer to the first question, it might be better to answer all these questions with more questions, pointing out examples of US foreign policy. Since I take great, sometimes sadistic, joy in making things confusing, this is what I will do. Besides, if it's confusing, you have to think about it. While I usually do a lot of preaching, ranting, and raving on the blog, I think a subjective topic such as defining terrorism deserves more thought and less mouth.

Can an attempted coup be considered terrorism? Or, better yet, can a revolution be considered terrorism? What happened in Venezuela cannot be consider a revolution, but it comes close. The coup had a decent amount of support, but it wasn't enough to fully counter the majority of popular support that President Chavez receives. There was a general strike and massive marches in the streets surrounding the presidential palace, but no military actions, so it wasn't a revolution. But, as a general question to an objective, third party, non-biased spectator, should a revolution in any country be considered terrorism?

Is terrorism just limited to making innocent civilians fear for their lives because of a terrorists actions? Or should we consider the overthrow of a government to be terrorism, too, especially if that overthrow is violent and lacks popular support?

Whether or not the attempted coup in Venezuela is terrorism is very subjective. On one hand, people should have a right to revolt against their government if they feel it is necessary. On the other hand, Chavez is the democraqtically elected President of Venezuela, and citizens can just do what any other normal republic does: Wait until the next election and put somebody new in office. ("Attention shoppers, this offer is not valid in California.") Of course, since Chavez is a relatively popular leader who obtained his office by winning a popular election, Chavez's opponents probably fear that he would be reelected in a second popular election, so they searched for other ways to remove him from office. Can a coup under these circumstances, when a minority of the people wish to usurp a democratically elected popular government by placing their own leader in power, is Chavez correct in defining this as terrorism?

Could the American Revolution be defined as terrorism? Obviously not to our founding fathers, but certainly Great Britain looked upon actions like the Boston Tea Party as terrorist in nature. Can we define the Boston Massacre as a terrorist act?

Is it terrorism to wage war to take another countries land, like the US did when it fought against Mexico in 1846, acquiring Utah, New Mexico, California, Nevada, Arizona, and pars of Colorado that were previously under a Mexican flag.

What if war for conquest is done for religious purposes? Surely terrorist organizations like al-Qa'ida would love to get rid of the US government and enforce Islamic law across this country if they got the chance, and they are widely recognized as one of the largest terrorist organizations in the world. Did President McKinley not have the same religious righteousness when waging war against the Philippines at the turn of the last century? McKinley commented on why he thought the US needed to fight this war: "...There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them [emphasis mine], and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died." [Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, pg. 305-6; Zinn commented, "The Filipinos did not get the same message from God."]

Bombing and murder of innocent civilians who are not able to defend themselves is probably most well known act of terrorism, but it is only defined as terrorism in certain cases. Those cases depends upon ones opinion, and there are many. Is there a clear defintion of terrorism that makes a Palestinian suicide bombing stand apart from the Israeli soldier who murders a Palestinian child? Can the 12 years of UN sanctions on Iraq, stretching throughout the Clinton administration, be considered terrorism for the childrens lives it terminated? Can the fact that US didn't support a Shiite rebellion against Saddam Hussein in 1991 leaving thousands of Shittes to be slaughtered, be considered support for terrorism? On the same side of that coin, can the US be guilty of supporting terrorism when we gave Hussein the chemical weapons which he used to gas thousands of Kurds and the Iranian army?

When President Clinton bombed a Sudanese medicine factory, robbing many people of medicine that they needed, was it terrorism? Bad intelligence reports? Or, what still lingers in the back of my mind, a reaction to Monicagate story and keep it off the front pages? And what about support from Carter, Reagan, and Bush Sr. administrations to Latin American military juntas, like Grenada, Chile, and El Salvador? Or Reagan's bombing of Tripoli, Libya, which could have killed hundreds of innocent Libyans all because their president, Khadafi, may have been involved in a bombing in West Berlin which killed an American serviceman?

Are we to assume that actions committed by the official military forces of a nation-state are exclude from any definition of terrorism and should be defined as something else? And what do we call the actions committed by intelligence agencies from one country that unfavorably effect and/or replace the democratically elected government of another country? Case in point, how would define a joint action from US and British intelligence agencies in the early 50's to overthrow Iran's new democratically elected government and place the Shah back in power?

So, what's terrorism? And if a simple layman with only a public education, like myself, can ask the questions I have just posed, can we really believe anything that any US Presidential administration tells us about terrorism and how they are fighting it?

I promise there will be something of substance posted to the blog tonight. It would have been posted this morning, but I had to call Verizon, who were finally able to get UPS on the phone only to have UPS tell me that they delivered my DSL modem on saturday. Which means one of two things happened: a neighborhood kid stole it, or they are lying since I was home that morning and my roommate was home for most of the day. I'm leaning towards the latter right now. Of course, I don't find this out until tuesday because nobody there has my UPS tracking number... So, in the meantime, I'm still using dial up on crappy, old telephone lines, which makes just checking email an adventure to cringe it.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Seconds

Here at Loaded Mouth, dating is not a taboo topic.

*******: Ok, Adam, what kind of signals from a girl tell you that she likes you?
tasfourohone: Cocksucking usually helps.
tasfourohone: ;>
*******: (I'm trying to help a friend figure out how to get a guy to make a move, because she is afraid to)
*******: Be serious.
*******: :P
tasfourohone: Seriously, women should make more moves.
tasfourohone: Why?
tasfourohone: Because guys are dumb and most of us wouldn't know when a girl likes unless unless she sucks our cock.
tasfourohone: We can be bleedin geniuses in other areas, but retards when it comes to figuring out if somebody likes us.
tasfourohone: And if she doesn't make the first move, then there's, like, .5% chance that he'll ask her out.
tasfourohone: And he'll probably just go for some ditz that wouldn't give him the time of day.
*******: Well, I tried to tell her that, but she refuses to make a move.
tasfourohone: Well, she's fucked.
tasfourohone: :)

While I'm posting my online conversations, here's what one of my Canadian friends had to say about "stereotypical" Americans:

adupont13: What is a stereotypical american?
************: stereotypical I guess is one that thinks guns are the answer for everything, one that thinks it's cold in canada year-round when it's maybe three months....people who think we live in igloos, peoplewho think we say "aboot" instead of about, people who think all our police are mounties....
************: people who ask what time it is in canada when there's six time zones...heh
************: then any who think we all speak french
************: that's about the main things
************: 70% of us ONLY speak and understand english.
************: 6% only french, 13% bilingual...rest are indigenous languages or from whatever country they immigrated from's language
adupont13: On the "aboot" point, I worked with a couple of canadians in Ohio and they DID say "aboot", often. :)
************: maybe a certain part of canada does say it that way, lol, not sure, but many millions don't:)

Has Russia been taking tips from Bush?

I was listening to BBC radio this morning and they had a story about how Russia is now stonewalling the Kyoto accords. Even though they have had 6 years to think about signing it, Russian President Putin says that they need to do more research to see how this will affect his country.

The agreement can still, theoratically, be salvaged if Russia signs on, even of the Bush administration won't. But without Russia adhering to the accord, the it's pretty much dead because the countries agreeing to it don't produce as much pollution as industrial giants like the US and Russia do.

What more research does Putin need to do? Maybe he's waiting for a few more chunks ofice to fall into the Arctic or Southern Oceans.

[Before anyone asks,"...Southern Ocean?" It's the new name given to the southern portions of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Basically, it surrounds Antarctica. I found this out in the CIA World Factbook.]

Day 7 without DSL and no end in sight..

Fuck. Verizon.

All these incompetent clods needed to do was send me a goddamn fucking DSL modem to replace the one they originally sent me that blew out in three goddamn fucking weeks.

These fucks can't even give me the right tracking number. And, of course, their help desk can't check on the tracking number I was originally given because that's the shipping department's job, and they are closed, and appearently nobody there wants to log important information into their call center tickets. So now I have to spend my second tuesday morning in as many weeks on the phone with these fucking fucktards.

Am I the only person this happens to? Nobody else I know has ever had this much trouble with their DSL line or company. And I'm not stupid, I know what to do when I have a keyboard in front of me. Yet, anytime I goto a computer show or get something new for my computer, it blows up in my fucking face. I'm just so fucking sick of it, I'm ready to move into a cabin and send bombs to every company that has ever fucked me over.

Suggested reading

All weekend, Atrios has been on the story of the White House illegally lleaking a story to the press. You might have heard about this in the mainstream press, but goto Atrios for the real story, links to other blogs and their reporting on the story, and he's even printing good comments from his site to the blog.

In other news, still no DSl for me, so, posting is still light. But you've already figured that one out.

From Rall.com

Underdogs shall rule

The Red Sox, whose last title came in 1918, will face the Cubs in the World Series. Chicago's drought has been longer, the last time they won it all was 1903. (For all of you misguided non-baseball fans out there wondering why they are the underdogs.)

Sox in 7.

The Yankees will be trounced by the Twins, and I will laugh. Mooohahhahaha! What's the combined age of their starting rotation, 500? Yeah. They're going down. Crash and fucking burn, baby.. They better hope the Boss isn't packing heat.