Missile "Defense" is getting wings
Remember that missile defense program that Republicans have tried forcing upon us since the 60's? Remember the fact that it doesn't actually work and the tests have failed? Well, Bush has included it in the rather bloated Pentagon budget. Read the whole article. It's tasty. (Hint: the Pentagon budget stands at $487 billion dollars, and they'll be asking for more money next year.)
Saturday is... Nothing Day!
There's nothing new to vote on for the ecosystem, I haven't found any cartoons I liked, and I don't feel like posting a picture of Mac. Oh well. Mac's pretty disappointed.
Update on Dean's Loot
dKos says Dean has $5 million in the bank, which is upgraded from being flat broke.
More bilking
ExxonMobile's profits are up 63%, and ChevronTexaco's profits have doubled. Meanwhile, those prices at the gas pump just keep getting higher and higher, but these no antitrust lawsuit in sight.
Lord Hutton's pile of crap
Here's something BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan had to say upon his resignation, due to Lord Hutton's report which was sparked by Gilligans's story:
"This report casts a chill over all journalism, not just the BBC's. It seeks to hold reporters, with all the difficulties they face, to a standard that it does not appear to demand of, for instance, government dossiers."
No shit, eh?
Scott Ritter, (remember him?), has some interesting things to say about what's not explored by Lord Hutton:
A review of testimony submitted to the inquiry elicits a single reference to Operation Rockingham, a secretive intelligence activity buried inside the Defence Intelligence Staff, which dealt with Iraqi WMD and activities of the UN special commission (Unscom). This acknowledged that Rockingham managed the interaction between David Kelly, the weapons expert whose suicide led to the Hutton inquiry, and the UN. But Lord Hutton dug no further into this. If he had, some interesting insight would have been provided on several issues of concern, including the possibility of the "shaping" of UN intelligence data by Rockingham to serve the policy objectives of its masters in the Foreign Office and the joint intelligence committee.
But this data received little or no attention inside Rockingham. Dr Kelly was not only an active participant in the investigations in Iraq, but also a key player in shaping the findings to the British government. He was also one of the key behind-the-scenes advocates of the government position. For some time, the government had allowed him unfettered access to the press, where he spoke, often on the record, about his work with Unscom.
Any probing of Rockingham by Lord Hutton would have exposed it for what it had become - a big player in the shaping of information regarding Iraq's WMD inside the government and, through its media connections, in shaping public opinion as well.
Kill thousands and go free. Protest the murders and goto jail.
Remember this photo?
Here's the rest of the story.
TWO peace activists who painted No War on the Sydney Opera House were today sentenced to nine months periodic detention.
David Burgess, 33, and Will Saunders, 42, were convicted late last year of malicious damage after painting No War on the tallest sail of the Opera House on March 18, 2003.
NSW District Court Judge Anthony Blackmore today sentenced the pair to nine months weekend jail and ordered they jointly pay $111,000 compensation to the Sydney Opera House Trust.
Earlier in today's proceedings the pair handed over a cheque for $40,000 to the trust.
How despicable.
And these things go unquestioned...
I watched NBC Nightly News tonight, it was on the tube when I got up and I was still in that semi-catatonic state that you fall into after rolling out of bed. (I'm surprised drool wasn't running down my chin.) Anyways, Tom Brokaw was kawing and then they ran a story about the Hubble Telescope and whether or not it should be salvaged, since it can work for quite a while as long as it's serviced. Given that the Hubble gives us really cool pictures of things deep in space and I like viewing shiny things, I'd like to see it stay. Then there's that whole scientific aspect to it, how it helps us explore and understand the universe, etc. But since Bush wants to go back to Mars, there may not be funding to service the poor Hubble.
Uhm, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we get to the moon in the 60's? What scientific purpose for understanding the universe does Bush have that would necessitate a trip back to the moon that would trump what we get, for cheaper, from the Hubble Telescope? If this is about mining helium-3 for energy, why aren't we going the cheap route and exploring alternative energies so this aren't so alternative once we run out of things like oil? (In all fairness, there's a wire story yesterday saying Bush wants more research money for Hydrogen cars in the 2005 budget. This being an election year, I'll believe it when I see it.) What possible purposecould we have for going back to the moon? Been there, done that, created the technology 35 years ago. Why go again? What's the point?
Eating Kerry Alive
That's what the Bush campaign plans to do, and given Kerry's 19 year paper trail in the Senate, he could be very vulnerable.
Kerry may project more "presidentialness" - with the towering height, the stentorian voice, the measured demeanor - than Dean, but he also comes with the longest paper trail of any of the candidates, including 19 years as a senator, with votes on the full range of national issues. Dean, who served as Vermont governor for 11 years, did not take positions on many national issues.
"What the Republicans are going to do is whittle him down to size as a Dukakis liberal," says a senior GOP Senate aide, referring to the former Massachusetts governor and Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. "Kerry's going to have to be able to fend that off before it all sticks."
Near the bottom, this link also has a handy form you can use to see where candidates stand on the issues, in case you're interested.
Jackoing off
I know I swore off posting any news about Michael Jackson, but this is just too priceless. Listening to radio news, they just said that Whacko gave boys red wine and called it "Jesus Juice." No, that's not a typo.
It's nice to know we're being bilked at the pump
Fourth-quarter profit at the Exxon Mobil Corporation rose 63 percent as the company benefited from higher prices for crude oil and natural gas.
Benefited from higher prices? WTF? We're supposed to believe that Exxon/Mobile profits increased 63% because they had to pay more for crude oil and natural gas? If your costs go up, usually your profits go down unless you have raised prices. And if your costs go up but your profits rise 63%, then you must have hiked those prices up a lot. So, basically, we're all getting bilked at the pump because rich assholes want more money in their fat wallets.
Use Windows.. Or else!
Thanks to a Microsoft lawsuit, it's now illegal to sell Lindows in the Netherlands. The judge went as far as to bar Lindows from making their website available to Benelux-based internet users. In other news, Microsoft is working to redfine "ridiculous," on, errr, nevermind. They just did.
Porking the Kurds
The Bush administration wants to to label the Kurdish PKK as a bunch of dirty, rotten terrorists. I guess this is our solution to Iraq Shia calling for free elections that the Kurds would lose out on anyways. That means the Kurds would be a problem, so fuck'em.
Mission Accomplished
Fatalities are on the rise in Iraq.
US combat deaths in Iraq have risen sharply during January despite a drop in the number of attacks and the capture of former dictator Saddam Hussein over a month ago.
I have a song going through my head after reading this story, the Dead Milkmen's "Beach Party Vietnam."
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Japanese soldiers in Iraq are giving 110 sheep to residents of Iraqi city Samawah. Just thought you should know.
What I don't get
Maybe I shouldn't talk because I haven't fully explored the Lord Hutton report which came to the conclusion that the BBC lied in a report saying the British government had their intelligence agencies "sex up" allegations of Iraq's WMDs. I listened to Tony Blair's self-masturbatory speech about the report, and Australia's PM Howard is asking his critics to apologize because the report verifies that he didn't lead his country needlessly into war. A BBC reporter lied, OK, he shouldn't have done that and there should be some people stepping down from power over at the BBC (which has happened), but two facts remain: we have yet to find WMDs in Iraq (and they probably don't exist), and us peaceniks who, before the war, claimed Iraq had no WMDs and pointed to intelligence sources to verify our claims, it looks like we were right. With that said, it still puzzles me how British intelligence, if it was indeed straight intelligence without any embellishment from Tony Blair or members of his government, could have been so wrong. Not only was Iraq not able to launch an attack against England in 45 minutes, but Iraq doesn't even have the weapons to do this. The intelligence he got was wrong, whereas the peaceniks who claimed before the war that Iraq had no WMDs are right. Why? Like I said, I haven't fully explored Lord Hutton's report, but this just mystifies me.
Europeans just can't handle the snow
Maybe Canada can launch an international mission to stop incidents like this:
"Two 16-year-olds were having a snowball fight, and the judge's house got hit. Then the light went on, the door opened, and a shotgun fired off two rounds," said court spokesman Juergen Wigger on Wednesday. "The judge was alone at home." [Yes, it was the judge with the shotgun.]And this:
A giant snowball stopped Dutch trains in their tracks Wednesday on a key route, and young pranksters thrilled by a rare snowfall were the prime suspects.
Heh.
Censorship - Chinese Style
I guess making this post disqualifies people in China from viewing this website. The rest of you might find it boring, but it's good to be concerned about freedoms in America and elsewhere.
Since November 2002 there has been a dramatic rise in the number of people detained or sentenced for expressing their opinions online or for downloading information from the Internet in China...
Those detained include students, political dissidents, Falun Gong practitioners, workers, writers, lawyers, teachers, civil servants, former police officers, engineers, and businessmen. They have been accused of various "offences", including signing online petitions, calling for reform and an end to corruption, planning to set up a pro-democracy party, publishing 'rumours about SARS', communicating with groups abroad, opposing the persecution of the Falun Gong and calling for a review of the 1989 crackdown on the pro-democracy protests. Most have been charged with "subversion" or "endangering state security" - criminal charges which have resulted in prison sentences of between 2-12 years.
Tell that to the Spartacus League the next time you see them.
Repeal the "PATRIOT" Act
9/11 panel slams government incompetence
As it turns out, we don't really need these elaborate homeland security measures to prevent terrorists from entering the country. The 9/11 commission has found that a little common sense and following standard procedure would have prevented the 9/11 hijackers from entering the country.
The Washington Post reports, " The U.S. government fumbled repeated opportunities to stop many of the men … from entering the country, missing fraudulent passports and other warning signs that should have attracted greater scrutiny … The new findings by the independent commission investigating the terrorist strikes stand in marked contrast to the contentions of many senior U.S. officials, who for more than two years have portrayed the 19 hijackers as law-abiding travelers who did little to attract government suspicion and who, in nearly all cases, entered or resided in the country legally."
Dean's Loot
It's all gone, along with his campaign manager. Plus Dean can't pay his campaign staffers starting next month. Unless he manages a few victories next tuesday, we'll be sticking a fork in the Dean campaign.
I blame the media!
You know, for the past 24 hours, all I've heard is, "newhampshirenewhampshirenewhampshire!" and, "snowsnowsnowsnowwe'reallgonnadie!" Now nothing shocking happened in Pancakistan and there's less than an inch of snow on the ground. And no neat stories to report on. What a bust.
Ah, so you admit it!
From some rightist propaganda called The National Review:
On CNBC, John Seigenthaler was interviewing George McGovern and asked about Wesley Clark's failure to repudiate Michael Moore's jeer that President Bush was a "deserter." McGovern replied: "What would you call it?" He said Bush was called to serve his country, and didn't show up for Vietnam. Ah, but by that standard, what does McGovern call a slick guy whose draft number was called, who then had a spot arranged in the Arkansas ROTC, and then skipped out for Oxford? Hmmm?
This is a classic GOP propaganda move: When Bush is cornered with reason, bring up Clinton! To translate, NRO said, "Yeah, we know Dubya;s daddy got him into the Air National Guard so he didn't have to serve a tour in Vietnam and Dubya couldn't even make it through that before going AWOL, but since we like him it's no big deal. Clinton, who didn't have a daddy to run to because he died when Clinton was a baby, must be condemned for having morals that caused him to dodge the draft! Oh, BTW, we're a bunch of hypocritical, whiny little children."
This is such bullshit. Bush went AWOL, a crime whose statute of limitations lasts for 40 years. Bush committed a crime and has never faced punishment for it, whereas Clinton's crime was pardoned by Carter. Bush is a criminal and the right doesn't feel like it's a story. But, as we all know, whether it's Dubya, Cheney, or drug addicts like Limbaugh, crime is OK if you're a member of the GOP.
Now leaving the land of Pancakes
I've combed far and wide looking for a scoop from New Hampshire, but there's nothing interesting that I can find to report. But I at least wanted to post something unique from NH, so here's a picture I snapped when I took a roadtrip to NH last fall:
Nifty, no?
The biggest story of the day
Yes, I know I haven't mentioned anything on Kerry's win in Pancake Country Annex. If it's not too busy at work this morning (with that snow storm rolling in, no telling how busy it could be), expect some analysis from yours truly, for whatever it's worth. Maybe I'll make another post to my dKos diary and see how many people think I'm wrong. That's always fun.
The economy's doing great!
Kraft to cut 6000 jobs, at least 1300 of those are salaried positions in this country.
New Blog!: F'n Mat's "Productivity's Down"
F'n Mat, who posted on L/M in the past couple of weeks, has started an f'n blog: Productivity's Down. He's not afraid of telling Bush to fuck off and having his writing venture beyond politics. So go read it, before I do mean things to you.
Feeling bloated?
Remember, we're paying for it.
The Congressional Budget Office predicted on Monday that the federal budget deficit would hit a record $477 billion this year and that accumulated deficits over the next decade would total $1.9 trillion.
The cause? Bushes' tax cuts. Let's cut the bullshit: whoever the next president is, Republican or Democrat, they will have to raise taxes because Bush has made too many cuts that we can't afford. This is why I'm pissed off about Democratic candidates who attacked Dean because he dared to say that he would repeal the Bush tax cuts. They NEED to be repealed, otherwise Bush has successfully rolled the tax base onto the backs of the working class and the poor. This means that we taxes eventually need to be raised again (and they will be, it's envitable), you and me will feel the brunt of it. The rich have the money to pay for lobbying power to fight tax increases on their income, do you?
Too little, too late, too many people murdered
"US to review pre-war intelligence." Wouldn't it have made sense to do this, uhm, pre-war?
How to tell if you're not a rich snob
Read this line: "Garçon! The Check, Please, and Wrap Up the Bordelais!" If you had no clue this was about French wine (like me), then congratulations, you're not a rich snob! (Or maybe I'm just not "cultured.")
Making fun of people is my job
Md. Man Runs 152.27 Miles on Treadmill. In other news, Md. man suddenly morphs into a hampster.
Sigh
This is what happens when the conservative media invents a story: the Mean Dean doll by "herobuilders.com."
Remember kids, ignorance is bliss, and there's a lot of happy fucking people out there.
District court rules part of Patriot Act unconstitutional
I'm going to make passing reference to this. The victory was in a district court, which doesn't mean much because now it goes to an appeals court.
Man, those Democrats calling for a 9/11 investigation are whacko! We all know Bush is an honorable leader who puts his country first before his agenda!
Or... Bush knew?
The United States was warned of impending September 11 terrorist attacks by an Iranian spy, but ignored him, German secret service agents testified yesterday in the trial of an alleged al-Qaida terrorist.
The spy, identified as Hamid Reza Zakeri, tried to warn the CIA after leaving Iran in 2001, but was not believed, two German officers who interviewed him told the Hamburg court.
Man, all these warnings but Bush apparently had no clue. All these warnings, but Bush won't release files detailing what his administration did concerning 9/11. Anyone who suggests that the forewarned Bush has something to hide is accused of being a crazy conspiracy theorist, yet Bush continues to hide as the evidence mounts. Not to be a crazy conspiracy theorist, but what is Bush hiding?
Apparently, Bush has something to hide, or else he wouldn't be worried about 9/11 and the election:
An independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks says it can't finish its final report before late July, putting it at odds with House leaders who oppose a delay that would push the report's release closer to the November election.
If Bush and the Republicans are so innocent, then why worry about the report coming out close to election time? And why does the commission need more time?, "because the group had been bogged down by disputes with the administration and New York City authorities over access to documents and witnesses."
G.I. Joe in Orbit
Does Bush have any military aspirations for the new Space Race?
Bruce Gagnon: I think it?s part of a long, long-time plan to begin to build the infrastructure to use space to control the earth and then ultimately to create a 50-year, 100-year plan to control the shipping lanes between the earth and planetary bodies. There's a plan to actually mine the skies. They've discovered gold on the asteroids. On Mars, there's magnesium and cobalt and uranium. That little rover driving around Mars today, it's not looking for the origins of life like we're told; they're doing soil identification and they're trying to identify what is where on that planet. There's helium-3 on the moon. In fact, there's a New York Times story where they say that it will replace fossil fuels when they are gone on the earth, and helium-3 will be used for fusion reactors. Coincidentally, the U.S. never signed the 1979 Moon Treaty that outlaws permanent bases on the moon, military bases, and most importantly, says that no country or corporation or individual can claim ownership of the moon. The U.S. didn?t sign that treaty because we've always intended to have military bases on the moon. I have a copy of a secret Army study from 1952 that says the U.S. has to control the moon. They long ago realized that whoever controls the moon actually will be able essentially to control the pathway on and off the planet Earth ? they call it the earth-moon gravity well; whoever is at the top of the well will control who can get on and off the planet. And a congressional study in 1989 entitled, "Military Space Forces: the Next 50 Years," stated that with our bases on the moon, we would be able to hijack rival shipments upon return, so that if anyone else tried to mine the sky but they weren't authorized, we would be able to take them out on the way back.
Then, of course, there's competition with China's space program. But the more you look at this, the less Bush seems like an idealist.
New email virus going around
At least that's what I assume, because my L/M account is getting pummeled with crap. I suppose I should read the tech news, but I haven't gotten to that yet. So, you know, don't open attachments or anything. I used to support email software and had to deal with customers who open all these attachments and fuck up your system, so be smart and give those poor workers a break.
Update: Indeed.
The Race to the Bottom
Thanks to the Republican/Democrat consensus on globalization, no American job is safe from offshoring.
Now, American companies are beginning to ship out their professional jobs. Although the movement is still in its infancy, IBM is far from the first to move higher-paying professional positions off shore. To name just a few, Accenture Ltd., formerly known as Arthur Andersen Consulting, has operated locally in India for some time [tasnote: I guess they just can't destory enough good jobs], and recently announced plans to more than double its Indian workforce to 10,000. And both privately held Google and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) division AOL are also planning to open new engineering centers in India.
It is beginning to seem like there is no work that a U.S. worker can do that his employer cannot convince a foreign worker to do as well, and for less wages.
This is an interesting column, it details one company which is offshoring jobs to India and discussing the profits to be made. They are as great as you think at the beginning of the transition, but as overseas workers become more accustomed to these jobs, the easier the transition will be, hence increased profits for corporations.
What happens to the jobless Americans, though? The column seems to dismiss this issue in the last paragrah:
The double-savings to the American companies that buy the legal services will then trickle down further to the great mass of American consumers of the companies' products.
You gotta be kidding me. There's two ways to take this: It's either very, very false, or very very true in the most negative sense. I can't speak for all products, but I haven't noticed a correlation between cheap labor and a cheap cost for consumers. Take Converse, for example. The last model of shoes they made in America were Chuck Taylor All-Stars. In the mid 90's, the going price for these American made products was $15-20. Converse's other models, hencho en Mexico, were at least double the price. Converse was recently bought out by Nike and all production most moved to China, and now I can't find a pair of chucks for under $35. Most I see go for around $40. Maybe there's a case to be made for electronics, DVD players are awfully cheap these days, but through personal experience I've found out that you get what you pay for. If you pay pennies for a product, it's usually ends up having a short life span.
Of course, this could be true. It makes sense. With free trade agreements encouraging a race to the bottom as far as wages are concerned, there's only so many good paying jobs America can lose our citizens can no longer afford to spend money loosely anymore. Our sum consumer debt has sky-rocketed to $2 trillion, which averages out to thousands of dollars for every adult American. This debt does not take into account mortgage/rent and student loans, this is just credit card and loan debt. When one corporation lowers the cost of labor, their competition has to do the same to compete, because their corporations are dependent on stockholders and they won't purchase stock if the corporation can't grow. The only way American workers can compete with this is to lower our wage expectations, but that's impossible given our higher and more expensive standards of living. A worker in India typically doesn't face debt from a $200,000 mortgage, car payments, and student loans. American workers also have to demand health insurance, whereas workers in other countries which have a nationalized health care system do not have this problem. So America will continue to lose jobs, and eventually our standard of living will decrease and for corporations to sell anything in one of the markets in the world, they will have to decrease their prices. Of course, this means they will lose a lot of money from the American market, and if they can't recoup these costs from other emerging economies (China, India, Russia), then they can't grow their corporation, stockholders will dump their stock, corporations will go out of business, and then they'll wish the just paid those goddamn expensive American workers in the first place.
I don't want to seem reactionary or prejudiced (I guess it's too late for that..), and I'm not adverse to other countries looking to increase the size of their economy. All countries need to do this because all countries need jobs. It's just that I can't help but feel betrayed by American corporations. As if offshoring there business offices to avoid paying taxes wasn't enough, now they have decided that they can't pay wages to American workers. In the meantime, the bosses increase their salary and bonuses when more jobs are exported outside the borders. It's enough pure, unmitigated selfishness to make you sick. And it doesn't make sense. How do these corporations expect to sell their wares when we can't afford to buy them? Something's gotta give and when it does, it won't be pretty.
You know, I just can't make this up
WASHINGTON - Workers dismantling an aging nuclear weapon improperly secured broken pieces of a highly explosive component by taping them together, federal investigators found. An explosion could have occurred, they said.
No, wow. Just plain wow. I feel lucky to be alive.
What's Ashcroft huffing?
He's still trying to justify the war.
"Weapons of mass destruction, including evil chemistry and evil biology, are all matters of great concern, not only to the United States, but also to the world community."
Yes, evil chemistry and evil biology! (Which a fair war trial would reveal that the US or another western countries gave Saddam.) This is great. This is genius. Why didn't I think of this first? If you want to justify war with another country, send that country weapons! Then say, "That country has evil weapons!," and ATTACK!
Fark Headline of the Day
"Man marries 15-year-old cousin who is also his aunt"
Imagine the kids. Errr, ick, forget I mentioned that.
Spam Parade
Latest subject lines I've received:
"small square plaster would grow ur little dic.k "
"healthful rebutted provisional batwing ditto" (WTF?)
"donkey loamy cholinesterase" (again, WTF?)
"use this plaster & ur pen-is will really grow oviform appeal" (is my cock a house? I ain't putting fucking plaster on it)
"no one will love u if u are fat biotaxy"
"never be a person that irritating others the most janice ogress cottony" (uh, yeah)
"stick plaster and see ur pe,nis grow longer debauchee kermes" (again with the cock plaster! Damnit, the only white stuff on my wang will be semen after I whack it, and then I have to wash it off before to ferments and turns green or something.)
"bikini snow skiing................... " (glass cutting ahead!)
Yeah, there really isn't a point to this post...
Slow day at L/M
I have some studying to do and other odds and ends to tie up, so posting will be light today.
Nothing ever fucking changes
NYC police shoot another unarmed man dead. And -- shockola -- he wasn't white! Who woulda thunk it?!
Why does John Edwards hate America?
How dare he call for an investigation of the Bush administrations honorable war in Iraq! Maybe Edwards should run of president.. Of Gitmo!
The economy's doing fucking fantastic!
I hope you love your shitty wages because the high paying jobs just ain't fucking coming back.
...a study released this week by a Washington, D.C., research group supported by organized labor shows that over the past two years, lower-wage jobs have increasingly supplanted higher-wage jobs in Minnesota and most of the rest of the nation.
Jobs in higher-paying industries effectively have been giving way to jobs in lower-paying industries in 48 of the 50 states since the official end of the recession in November 2001, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The study, based on federal labor data, found that 29 states not only posted a net job loss for the two years ending in November, but the loss was concentrated in higher paying sectors.
Another 19 states saw a slight job gain, but through disproportionate growth in the low-wage sector.
You know (well, no, you don't, so that's why I'm fucking telling you), I saw an old friend tonight. We got into a conversation and hementioned that he was an anarchist, something I already knew but I waskinda taken aback by it. His lifestyle and mine are two different worlds, and because of that I feel like a sellout. I mean, here I am in my mid-twenties, worried more about jobs, savings, mutual funds for retirement, my car, yadda yadda.. All of these things that apply to myself for my own selfish reasons. He lives with other artists (the artists who have just been evicted in Providence, in fact. I was happy to find out he has a place to live right now) in a collective and basically does what he wants, living outside the system. There's something honorable in that lifestyle, and I wish I could do it. But, I mean, fuck, I'm about to vote Democrat for the first time in my life. Though I haven't mentioned it much, it's killing me. I hate the complexity of politics. The Democrats are just gonna put up another rich white boy as their candidate, he'll try saying he's not a big liberal to appeal to the middle, who end up ruling the country, and the cycle repeats. But we have to vote for whatever asshole they put up no matter how much they suck, because otherwise Bush will get 4 more years and we all know that's worse. So instead of protesting the Democrats and telling them that they're also a bunch of pansy-assed, two-faced fucking liars who are also funded by corporate america, I've resolved myself to holding my tongue and throwing my support behind whatever jackass they throw up for election, and hopefully he gets elected and then I can go back to building a true third party and being an actual activist. And it's fucking killing me. I feel like such a fucking sell out, but I keep reminding myself, "4 more years of Bush will suck more. He'll stack the Supreme Court and ram laws through Congress to make the country so blindingly Republican-Christian fundamentalist for years to coem that I'll beg to get deported to France." And that's not even getting into the deficit. God. Argh. FUCK!
Did I mention that I was frustrated today?
Fuck the polls
I'm sick of hearing all of these polls about Bush losing to an undecided Democrat candidate. Fine, they tell us what we already know: Bush isn't as popular as the spin doctors wish to have us believe. However, these polls still mean shit from an electoral standpoint. 2000 wasn't decided on the popular vote, now was it? There's a great chance that the Democrat candidate can win the popular vote again and still lose the election. The candidate will need to win all the states Gore won in 2000 and steal a large swing state (Ohio) or two (the Carolinas) from Bush to win, and THAT'S the challenge. Florida can't be trusted, other big states in the south are out. I don't see a Democrat netting multiple midwestern states that have 3-4 EC votes, so fuck those backwater hicks in flyover country. (That should lose me a few readers.) The states that matter are Ohio, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Those are the swing states which can be one. Take those popular opinion polls and shove them up your fucking ass, because it's time to focus on the real issues.
What the fuck is wrong with Alabama?
These people need to get fucked. Literally.
Employees at a book store in Cullman removed copies of Playboy and Playgirl magazines from its racks after a prosecutor warned they violated Alabama's anti-obscenity law.
I wonder how many 13 year old girls from this town are pregnant.
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