Fuck Verizon
Well, my DSL line is down. Again. I think the DSL modem burned out. Again. Verizon left me offline for over a week from late September into early October. Barely a month has passed and my DSL line is down again. Fucking ridiculous.. Am I the only person this happens to? Can anyone suggest a real DSL provider who can provide a constant connection?
Saddam tried to cut deal, but it's all Clinton's fault!
Yes, that is actually what Newsmax would like you to believe.
When I initially heard the story that Hussein tried cutting a deal with the US to avoid war, I didn't know what to make of it. I figured I would wait the story out and see if anything more came out of it, because there's no telling if the story was true. So I did search on it today and I was surprised to find that the pro-Bush tabloid Newsmax admits that the story is true, that Iraq tried cutitng a deal with the US to avoid war, but they tried spinning it. They admited that Iraq has been trying to cut a deal since 1993, so that must mean Clinton's to blame! Their "article" also does a good job of even mentioning the negotiations tried entering into with Dubya.
So what's the difference between Clinton and Bush not being able to land a deal with Saddam? That should be obvious: one took us to war and one didn't. That's a huge diference.
Since Newsmax has tried spinning the story, that must mean the story itself is true since they can't bury it. So Bush, care to explain to us why all of our soldiers are dying when you could have cut a deal with Saddam to avoid war?
Middle Eastern Democracy
I'm not going to link to Bush's speech where he tells Iran, Syria, and Egypt that they must become democracies, but I do have to ask.. What the hell is this guy thinking? Does he ever do any actual research before opening his mouth? When he said this, it reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend from Oman who now resides in India. I asked her why Oman was a monarchy and they haven't visited the 20th century and gone democratic, and she laughed at me. Her reasoning against democracy was that we wouldn't want countries like Oman being democratic because then Islamic fundamentalist governments hostile to the US would be elected.
And why did Bush only mention Iran, Syria, and Egypt? Saudi Arabia and Qatar aren't exactly pillars for governments elected by the people, why didn't he mention them? Why be selective?
Jobs Jobs Jobs
Whoooa Simba, we're not out of the woods yet:
Many of the new jobs [created] were part-time or in low-paying industries, causing some economists to temper their enthusiasm over Friday's report. The jobless level's decline to a six-month low -- from the standstill 6.1 percent of the previous three months -- initially buoyed Wall Street.
Yay, more shitty jobs were created! Welcome to the Bush economy!
Source: Ted Rall
Adjustments
As I make the transition from a first to third shift schedule, so does Loaded Mouth. Depending on your point of view, that either makes all my updates really early or really late, though today everyone will think the latter. I rolled out of bed around now, and I never though I'd have to say this about waking up in the afternoon, but I woke up too early. And it's really cold up here today, today's the night I probably bust out and get a space heater. Anyways, updates will come throughout the day.
Dude!
Michael Moore tells us how well his new book, "Dude, Where's My Country?" has been selling:
It took one year for "Stupid White Men" to sell a million copies in the United States. It took "Dude, Where's My Country?" just three weeks. That should give you some indication of the level of concern/frustration/anger in the country right now over what the Bush administration is up to.
Jesus. A million books in three weeks, this thing is on pace to beat the Bible as the highest selling book of all time. (Well, not really, but you get the idea.)
Profanity count
I've used forbidden words 9 times today, and that's not counting words like "cock", "sucking", "dick", or "ass". Yes folks, I need a hug. I guess I've been in a "mood".
Bush to the Environment: Goto Hell
From Mother Jones yet another Bush handout to big business:
Leavitt officially started his term as head of the EPA on Thursday, a day after EPA lawyers, on instructions from on high, announced that they would drop 70 investigations into coal-burning power plants that violated pollution laws. The move will benefit the utility industry, possibly saving it tens of billions of dollars' worth of pollution-control upgrades. The move comes as little surprise: it's part of a broader, systematic strategy on the part of the Bush administration to weaken the EPA to the point of irrelevance.
[snip]
Proponents justify the changes in terms of cost savings -- the EPA and the Justice Department have spent tens of millions of dollars on Clinton-era cases -- but they're also a handy way for the Bush administration to give back to some of their financial backers.
Fuck commentary, I'm not in the mood today. Is anybody else thinking, "God, Bush is such a fucking asshole!" Hmm, are ya? I am. Why? Because he's a murderer, that's why:
The Cheney task force is behind another of the administration's pet projects-protecting utilities from having to comply with a law enacted 26 years ago. Some 30,000 Americans die each year because the federal government is unwilling to take meaningful steps to enforce the Clean Air Act's standards for coal-fired power plants.
And to think that Clinton got impeached for simply getting his cock sucked. Apparently, a president can't be impeached if he's the one with a dick in his mouth. Just read the whole article.. I can't get through it right now, it makes me too angry.
Employment Bullshit
I'm going to say some things off the cuff here, no links and no research. I don't have too much time right now, and if you havn't gathered from my other posts today, I haven't been feeling too articulate.
I'm sick of hearing that the economy is bouncing back and that more jobs are being created. Last time I checked, I'm unemployed. I might be getting a job on monday, but it's a third shift job making $9 an hour, a wage that I haven't earned on a regular basis since I was 19since I have made a lot more money after I turned 20. Not that I'm not grateful for the job because it'll give me a lot of time to study for my A+ ceritification, but what the fuck?
What kind of jobs are being created? I do know that call center jobs I used to work are being shipped abroad, but what jobs are being created here to replace them? Do the new employment numbers even take into account whether or not these are full or part time jobs? Or if these jobs have benefits? Or that retail jobs are of course going to grow because retail stores are ramping up for Christmas season, and this, I imagine, also causes an increase in manufacturing jobs? The most I have heard from the corporate media about the jobs being created are that growth is mostly in the service sector, and a lot of temp jobs have been created.
Ooooh, service jobs and temp jobs! That's just waht the country needs for our employment! We can give our skilled, formerly full time employed with benefits workers a shitty part time job in the service sector, then Bush can glow about what a good job he's done with the economy. And the mainstream media, and even international media outlets like the BBC, are falling into line with what might be just another lie from the right.
Look, I don't know if the economy is rebounding or not, and I think that's the point. Nobody knows. Those who say that it is rebounding are talking out of their ass. It's christmas shopping season, of course there's going to be more jobs around. Retail stores need goods to sell and employees to sell them. After the holiday shopping season ends, are we going to see the tide of employment receeding? Are we? Is anybody else asking this question or just buying into the hype?
Sorry, but saying that the economy is recovering and more jobs are being created, then saying that the new jobs were created during the christmas shopping season and they are mostly service and temp jobs, not defining if they are even full time employment, that doesn't impress me. Maybe if we had a media that was actually liberal, some of my concerns would come to light.
Shameless
From the No-Wonder-The-Rest-Of-The-World-Fuckin-Hates-Us Dept., an automobile dealer in Houston is offering to help his customers exploit a loophole in tax laws so they'll buy gas-guzzling SUVs that they don't need. His ad says, "It's a loophole and this weekend, we can show you how to make that loophole big enough to drive a fleet of trucks and sport utility vehicles through it!"
Giving Diebold a taste of their own medicine
They are geting their asses sued. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Center for Internet and Society Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford Law School are providing legal services to two Swarthmore College students and a nonprofit ISP, who are suing Diebold to stop them from abusing copyright claims. For those not familiar with Diebold, I'm taking away you rock and you can't crawl under it to avoid the real world. I'll explain it in simple terms because I don't feel like writing: Diebold is a bad, bad puppy. He chews on the table and rips apart your shoes and then attempts to sue the pants off websites which dare to make available their internal memos about how faulty and insecure their electronic voting machines are. We need to roll up a newspaper, give him a good whack, and say, "Baaaad!" And that's what these students, an ISP, EFF, and SCC@SLS are attempting to do.
No smoking laws taken a bit too far
A video store owner in New York City got bitchslapped by health inspections for having a butt in an astray. He got a $6000 fine. That's a bit much, don'tcha think?
This legal ruling, however, isn't so confusing
Federal judges in San Francisco and New York ruled Thursday that the government's day-old ban on certain types of abortions was probably unconstitutional and issued orders protecting virtually all of the nation's abortion doctors from prosecution.
I'm just reporting it right now, folks. I'm too tired and cold to write anything else. But it's nice to know that at quarter to 7, cars still drive down my street blaring their shitty music.
Bush Lies
David Corn's got a new site to document Bush's latest lies: bushlies.com. Sounds like something to check on a regular basis, eh? And, you know, the fact that a website like this can exist should speak pages about Bush's so-called "integrity". Corn, Washington editor of the Nation and definitely not a Republican, is still a fair guy. He's not some whacko conspiracy theorist who is obsessed with anything Bush says, he's just a good journalist.
Wow. AAA just fucked me in the ass so hard I think I feel something in my throat. I'm never, ever doing business wih those assholes again.
Another slow day at Loaded Mouth
Well, now my car won't start. That's just great, especially since I need to look for a job to pay for the repairs on the damn thing in the first place, and I can't look for a job without a car. So, I have to see what I can do about this.. Blog takes a backseat to real life today.
More on the abortion/Nebraska ruling from yesterday
I still find it confusing. I found this article from the Omaha Channel in Nebraska, it givesmore detail:
U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf said his ruling would likely apply only to Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Bellevue and three other physicians who perform abortions. Those doctors are licensed to practice in Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, New York, South Carolina and Virginia. That means Kopf's ruling potentially could extend to those states.
An article from the Guardian goes into more detail:
[The] order by U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf in Lincoln applies only to the four doctors, who together are licensed in 13 states across the Midwest and East, and their staffs.
[snip]
Kopf also cited concerns that the law lacks an exception to allow the procedure in cases when the pregnant woman's health is in danger.
The fight for your right to your uterus is on
(Updates at bottom) Today, a bunch of stuck up men who have no business telling a woman what she can't do with her body and her health celebrated when Bush signed the partial-birth abortion ban into law.
Planned Parenthood is filing lawsuits to fight this new law. In a press release today, they annouced a ruling in Nebraska which temporarily prevents the new law from being used in that state. They go on to say:
By signing this ban today, President Bush demonstrated his willingness to sacrifice women's health and legitimate medical science to appease anti-choice hardliners. Today's signing is the culmination of a deceptive campaign to mislead the public and interfere with the sacred doctor-patient relationship.
Planned Parenthood is heading the legal battle to fight this unconstitutional law, which means they need your support. My unemployed ass will be sending them some change, and it's Christmas season, so you have no excuses.
[Update: Reports about the ruling don't actually say if this law was halted in just Nebraska or the rest of the country, or any other states. Since a federal judge in Nebraska cannot rule on the country at large, I assume that the ruling is solely for Nebraska.]
[More updates: It should be noted that calling this bill a "partial-birth abortion ban" is considered false by some groups who are against it, because the language of the bill makes it go beyond just a ban on partial-birth abortions. The medical validity of "partial-birth abortion" is even in quetstion. For more information, read NOW's informative press release.]
I should stop listening to AM radio
Last night, Michael Savage discussed how he wants to have a show in Las Vegas once a month. Sit down at tables, have a few drinks (both of which he suggested) and listen to the madman rant. Well, at least Michael knows where he belongs.
Some station around here needs to air Democracy Now!... [update] Speaking of Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman had Studs Terkel on last night. The latter half of the show ends up being interview/Studs spinning tells about his life, history, what he's seen in his 91 years in the country. Listen to it if you get the chance.
Hackworth interviews Clark
Maxim magazine, of all places, provides an interview of Welsey Clark with Col. Hackworth asking all the questions. Ignore the cleavage and read it.
I don't want to go on a rant, but..
Dennis Miller is getting his own news show on CNBC. How much do you want to bet this lasts a month? Honestly, do people actually care about Dennis Miller anymore? Didn't his schtick die in the 90's? Since we're giving old comedians who stopped being funny 10 years ago jobs, can Eddie Murphy get his own news program? I can picture it now: "The Stash of Pluto Nash."
State election coverage
I imagine there will be a few posts about the elections on Political State Report. If you are not familiar with PolState, it's a blog with contributors from most states in the union, so whenever they decide to post it gets published to the site for all to see. Given their nature, I imagine it will be a great place to see what happened in today's off-year elections, since normal people who live in those states will be posting coverage.
In fact, there's already a report from Texas, quoting from the Houston Chronicle, which will hopefully hammer another nail into the coffin of electronic voting:
David Puckett said he sat down on the floor and spent 25 minutes scribbling down his choices while other voters just took the time to write in their votes on the top races before dropping their homemade ballots into a pasteboard box. He said an election judge told him to write on the back of the paper if he ran out of room and then told him he might need to vote again this afternoon if the eSlate machines come back up. Then, Puckett said, the judges decided a second vote wasn't such a good idea.
"They're making up rules as they go," he said. "It's unbelievable."
Sheesh. Sounds like it's only a matter of time before we need international election monitors...
Buzzflash headliens of the day
Today's Top 5 headlines email I got from Buzzflash is particularly disturbing, so I'll rip off a couple and throw them on here.
The first headline speaks for itself. On the cancellation of the Reagen miniseries, here's my favorite paragrpah from that article: "CBS executives have been reworking the film over the last week, trying to fix what many critics - none of whom had seen the film [emphasis mine] and were relying mostly on a report in The New York Times about its contents - called inaccurate and unfair portrayals of the former president."
This is just absolutely ridiculous. We can't be critical of our prior presidents unless they are Democrats, then they are fair game? Given the treatment that Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have received, by the same Republican Hit Squad who shot down CBS for this Reagan miniseries, the answer is a very hypocritical yes.
And don't give me this, "Reagan is dying in his bed and he's suffering and we have to leave him alone" whine whine whine bullshit. The man's a former president, that alone makes him fair game. But that's not the point. Actions like this stifle democracy. When the media is not allowed to criticize the government, no matter who the representative of it is, our democracy is damaged. If the Republicans were actuallly concerned about the health of our democracy, they would allow the media to do their jobs. The right might scream and howl about the "liberal media", however untrue that myth is, but if people don't like it and they want to hear the Republican point of view, they can just goto Fox News. We're supposed to have choice in what we want to watch on television, but appearently Republicans just don't believe in that. They would much rather have the media kiss their ass, just like Fox News already does, and then say things are "fair and balanced" while forcing us to watch their propaganda.
Fark headline of the day
Woman dies after crashing car into cell-phone store because she was talking on her cell phone
Here's a job for me!
Yes! The draft boards are hiring! For those that may not click on links, that one goes to an actual military (.mil) site that is actually looking for draft board volunteers. One has to wonder why the military wants to fill up spots on draft boards.. Unless they plan on running a draft soon. And even that doesn'tmake sense. I had a conversation witth a 21 year old security guard at my last job, and when I asked him if he was going to school, he told me that he was going into the Navy instead. I asked him if he was going into the Navy, why is he working here? And he told me that right now there's a waiting list to get into all branches of the military. If we have some many people who want to join the military that expedites a necessity for a waiting list, why do we need a draft? Are we going to war with China soon?!
Divided loyalities
There are two things I could do today: A) Comb the news and add entries to the blog; or B) Look for a job. I'll probably do a little of both when the majority of my time is taken by option C) Fucking off on the computer all day. So, posting may be light, depends on how fruitless the job search is.
Still Bringing'em On
More death and destruction in Iraq. And just think, I was listening to five minutes of the Rush Limbaugh show today, and his guest host talked with somebody from the media/media expert/professional lying dirty rat pundit (I didn't listen for too long, so I didn't hear any names) about how the mainstream media is doing the public a disservice by telling us things are bad in Iraq. The media just isn't focusing on the GOOD things!
In the time that I listened, there was not ONE mention of today's bombings. So, who's lying to who here?
Something else to think about with unemployment numbers
I'm listening to a local show on NPR, and they are going over the unemployment numbers in Massachusetts. Unemployment there stands around 5.4% right now, but it looks much worse when you consider those who are underemployed. 1 in 9 people in MA are either unemployed or underemployed. I haven't done the research, but I'm going to make aneducated guess that numbers like this are similar state by state. Something to keep in mind the next time a Republican spouts off about how the economy is doing great and more jobs are being created.. What KIND of jobs are being created? And, more importantly, what other jobs are leaving?
Republicans have attempted to treat the news of economic growth as a silver bullet to prove that Bush's tax cuts have worked. It most certainly isn't. Instant gratification doesn't replace a solid economy where unemployment is low and good jobs are coming into/staying in the country. Economic growth will continue for the res of the year, we have now entered the holiday shopping season and that brings tempoorary retail jobs and high sales. We probably won't be able to tell what's happening until next year.
Election Day tomorrow
Even if it is an odd numbered year, there are still important statewide races, ones that the Bush administration is trying to influence. Here's a rundown.
Errata
Jesse at Gotham City 13 has welcomed Loaded Mouth into the Oatmeal Broadcast Group. Cool. He blogs and does good cartoons, so you should check his site out.
Remember an entry I made about residents in Hartlepool organizing to moon the old, toxic Navy ships the Bush administration is sending them to scrap? Neil, the "leader of the Hartlepool Volunteer Defence Force (bottom bearing battalion)" commented on it. The comment came a week after I made the entry, so it got buried, but it's good for a read and I will try to keep up on the story. If I find any pictures, you'll definitely see them. Heh.
Oh, that economy
Over at Winston Smith's tBlog, he explains some economic realities that don't run on par with the line Bush tried to feed us:
Bush is not creating the basis for a prosperous economy standing firm on a stable, solid foundation-- Bush is spending borrowed money-- and the wealthy, the rich, and the corporations aren't going to pay the bills, my friends. The exorbitant bills are to be paid for by "We the People" ... according to the Bush Doctrine: "Only the Little People Pay Taxes & Bear Burdens" ... In Bush's convoluted, simple mind: "We the People" = "Little People" ... The Bushies don't give a damn about anyone unable to contribute at least $100,000 to their campaign!
An example:
Bush was fund-raising again last week, and while in Columbus, Ohio, actually had the unmitigated gall to smirk:
CLAIM: "The tax cut was good for job creation. The two tax cuts were an integral part of creating the conditions for growth."
- President George W. Bush, in Columbus, OH 10/30/03
FACT: "Columbus has lost 16,000 jobs since President Bush took office – almost 2% of the city’s entire workforce."
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Metropolitan Report, 10/29/03
Whoops. That's not exactly telling the truth.
News on Iraq
I've recently recovered my link to TIDES World Press Report, which has been temporarily renamed to "TIDES Iraq Reconstruction Report". It's a non-partisan news dossier. They gather news from multiple interesting sources, including my Arabic newspapers around the Middle East that people like us otherwise wouldn't be able to read.
But hardly anybody is paying attention. The counter on their site has hits at under 200 since the beginning of November. I guess I'm trying to help them out a little bit. For the news this site produces, it should be receiving a few thousand hits a day.
Where else would you learn that even Kuwaitis are entering Iraq to wage jihad against US forces?
It's good reading, so clickity click click click.
Some news we all wish we didn't have to hear
15 soldiers dead, 21 wounded after an attack on their helicopter.
At the scene, villagers proudly showed off blackened pieces of wreckage to arriving reporters.
Others celebrated word of the helicopter downing, as well as a fresh attack on U.S. soldiers in Fallujah itself, where witnesses said an explosion struck one vehicle in a U.S. Army convoy at about 9 a.m. Sunday. They claimed four soldiers died, but U.S. military sources said they couldn't confirm the report.
"This was a new lesson from the resistance, a lesson to the greedy aggressors," one Fallujah resident, who wouldn't give his name, said of the helicopter downing. "They'll never be safe until they get out of our country," he said of the Americans.
Great. Just great. This is such a fucking mess.. And I'm just waiting for Bush's statement saying that this shows how "desperate" Iraqi forces are without admitting that, appearently, they are getting stronger since the attacks are becoming deadlier. And, you know, where the fuck is Saddam? Where is Bush's plan for Iraq? He just got his $87 billion, but does anyone get the sinking feeling that things are just going to get worse until this man is out of office?
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