Fark Headline of the Day

"Kerry accuses Bush of hiding plans to send more soldiers to Iraq but refuses to answer the unfounded allegations about his own crossdressing activities"

Credibility

I heard somebody make a great point in defense of Kitty Kelley: if her books are so outrageously false, how come no one has ever sued her for libel?

Another Random Saturday Sex Discussion Thread

What do you think of Fuck Buddies? Have you ever had one? Does having a fuck buddy provide an acceptable outlet for anybody who wants to have sex or is the notion of being somebody's fuck buddy demeaning to you?

Feel free to comment anonymously.

...So nobody has any comment for this? Come onnnnn!

These pesky criminals keep getting younger...

Kerry sent this to me. I imagine the editors had a good laugh before publishing this edition of their paper.

We get mail

Received this oddity today...

Subject: Bling over Bush!!

Dear Loaded Mouth:

I wanted to let you know about an innovative new project I created to help turn out the young single woman vote for Kerry.

It’s called CarrieForKerry.com and it uses fashion - in the form of a clever gold “Kerry” nameplate necklace inspired by the “Carrie” necklace worn by Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw character on Sex & the City – to win the hearts of millions of women voters who might not otherwise give a damn who gets elected come November. We’re donating 25% of the profits from the project to MoveOn PAC and ACT to support their swing state voter mobilization efforts, as well.

I could really use some help to spread the word. Would you consider posting something about CarrieForKerry.com on Loaded Mouth???

I’ve pasted some more information on www.CarrieForKerry.com below. Please let me know if you’d like any more info.

Thanks in advance any support you are able to provide!

Best,

Jessica

So... Would you wear it? Be honest.

The Soxtober Surprise

Forget Osama in the White House basement, everyone knows that sports will net more ratings than the news. Can you imagine how much facetime the Senator from Massachusetts will get when the Boston Red Sox win the World Series this October? Seriously.

Operation OUTROVE returns Monday

Since it got linked on Pandagon, this story has unfortunately lost it's steam and everyone is still talking about friggen memos, which is a very defeatist conversation as far as I'm concerned. Anytime we concentrate on those stupid memos, we're automatically put on the defensive - Exactly where the right wants us. We have to go on the offensive and paint them into a corner, and I had hope that my research into GTech's $23 million payoff to Ben Barnes so he could continue blackmailing Dubya would be one story that gave us the offensive advantage, but I think I have had trouble conveying all the facts. I've tried explaining the story to people in as simple a manner as I possibly could, but there's quite a few facets to it and I find myself at a loss to provide something short and snappy. It's like I'm taking cues from Kerry's speechwriters.

So I'm going to spend the weekend researching and writing, and hopefully I can come up with something clear and concise. If I can't, then maybe a more talented writer than I can... If this story doesn't completely die by next week.

The economy's still doing fucking fantastic!

United Airlines says there will soon be "significant job losses" at the company. And jobless claims went up in August. Consumer prices also went up slightly.

Please take into account that these are the economic figures before factoring in the effects of three hurricanes. (Maybe four - we'll find out next week.)

Hey Bush.. You own it! This fucker's allll yours!

Pulling a Lynndie!

There's plenty more of these photos, bunky.

Well, that's a unique spin!

While every article I've seen from an American news source says the polls show Bush and Kerry dead even, Aljazeera has another view: "Polls: Bush losing ground to Kerry."

Notice how they cast Bush in a negative light? Yeesh, wie trauen sie unseren Führer beleidigen! Don't those pesky a-rabs know it's OK for the media to brag about a huge Bush bounce which never existed, and also claim that Bush received a bounce from the Democratic convention when Kerry went up in the polls, but if Bush loses ground then must not framed as the truth?! Fucking troublemakers.

Fuck you, Bush

I'm tired and frustrated right now, though you've probably guessed at the latter given the tone I've taken on the blog this morning. So when I see articles containing this...

The Bush administration wants to trim the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites)'s budget for buying new air traffic control equipment at a time when more planes are in the air.

...The first thing that pops into my head is, "Fuck you, Bush." And can you blame me? The 9/11 president, three years removed from the attacks, wants to make flying more dangerous. I mean, honestly, how can anybody vote for this fucking asshole?

This is absolutely fucking ridiculous

International Truck and Engine Corp. is producing what it calls the world's biggest production pickup, a 14,500-pound monster capable of towing 20 tons. The 5- passenger 5-passenger CXT is nine feet tall, eight feet wide, 21 1/2 feet long and gets about seven miles on a gallon of diesel. The truck is manfactured in Garland, Texas.

Any man who purchases this has a dick no longer than this dash: -

This just says it all

My BBC RSS feed had this description for this article: "A new US intelligence report gives a more gloomy view of Iraq's future than Bush administration statements."

Sure is a shame that we have to go across the pond for this kind of honesty.

Darfur peace talks fold, again, while a watered down US resolution gets blocked in the UNSC, again

And more people are going to die, again.

Honestly, I'm at a loss for words. I don't really see a point in posting this to the blog because none of the information is new, it's just repeat of what's been going on for the past few months. The crisis in Darfur just feels so hopeless right now.

Charter schools, another fantastic Republican idea that very predictably went to shit

Nobody some something like this coming. Nope!

It had been a month since one of the nation's largest charter school operators collapsed, leaving 6,000 students with no school to attend this fall. The businessman who used $100 million in state financing to build an empire of 60 mostly storefront schools had simply abandoned his headquarters as bankruptcy loomed, refusing to take phone calls. That left Mr. Larson, a school superintendent whose district licensed dozens of the schools, to clean up the mess.

"Hysterical parents are calling us, swearing and shouting," Mr. Larson said in an interview in Oro Grande last week. "People are walking off with assets all over the state. We're absolutely sinking."

The disintegration of the California Charter Academy, the largest chain of publicly financed but privately run charter schools to slide into insolvency, offers a sobering picture of what can follow. Thousands of parents were forced into a last-minute search for alternate schools, and some are still looking; many teachers remain jobless; and students' academic records are at risk in abandoned school sites across California.

I sure can't wait until Bush privatizes social security!

3000

Iraq Body Count has been able to name 3000 and the 15,000 slain Iraqi citizens.

15,000, think about the size of that number for a minute... It's kind of ironic that Bush called Saddam the butcher of Iraq.

Senator Windbag

From his speech to the National Guard Association, we see the clear and concise John Kerry...

"Two days ago, the president stood right here where I'm standing and didn't acknowledge that more than 1,000 men and women have lost their lives in Iraq. He didn't tell you that with each passing day, we're seeing more chaos, more violence, indiscriminate killings."

...And the What-The-FUCK-Is-He-Trying-To-Say John Kerry.

"I believe you deserve a president who isn't going to gild that truth or gild our national security with politics, who is not going to ignore his own intelligence, who isn't going to live in a different world of spin, who will give the American people the truth, not a fantasy world of spin but a world where we challenge our brave men and women to be able to meet the test of our times."

We need to see more of the former.

The reason why I posted this is because of the treatment Bush got in the linked article, which I thought was far more favorable. Sometimes this is the fault of bias in the media, but other times is simply a matter of Bush having shorter, snappier lines. If Kerry is going to ramble on and repeat himself in the same sentence, it won't reflect well in the press.

Break out the brooms and start playing taps

The Yankees' starting pitching is terrible, their bullpen is tired and weak because of it, A-Rod has been a bust, Giambi's got nothing without his 'roids, and Joe Torre's just fucking ugly. I'm not only predicting a Sox sweep this weekend, but I think we'll see three 22-0 blowouts. :)

Light blogging

Work is extremely busy this morning.

We Want The Airwaves

An OGG file of the Ramones covering Motorhead's "R.A.M.O.N.E.S." will be available til Sunday, just click under the modified logo.

Some political heavy lifting

Lauren and Roxanne ask a complicated question: Does Ideology Matter? Both posts are must reads.

Operation OUTROVE: Da river in Egypt

I've run into some people who think my points in the Bush/Barnes/Gtech story are weak. There are two points in particular I'd like to defend. (Our current president will be reffered to as "Dubya" to avoid confusion when talking about him and his father.)

First: "Bush Sr. never contacted Barnes directly, therefore he Bush family had nothing to do with getting Dubya into the Air National Guard."

No, Bush Sr. did not contact Barnes, this is true. However, Barnes says he was asked to get Dubya into the Air National Guard by Sid Adger, a powerful Houston oilman who was a personal friend of the Bush family. On top of asking that Barnes give Bush preference, Adger's own children served in the same unit as Dubya. Barnes admitted under oath that he was the point man in an "underground railground" to get rich Texas kids into the Air National Guard because their parents didn't want them serving in Vietnam, and it can be argued that the crimes Dubya is guilty of was simply the culture in Texas at the time.

But I digress. Sure, a definite smoking gun doesn't exist that ties Bush Sr. to Barnes, but why is this necessary? We know that a close, personal friend to Bush Sr. personally asked Barnes to get Dubya into the Air National Guard. We also know that it was the culture of the rich and politically connected in Texas to go through Barnes when they wanted to keep their sons out of Vietnam. To suggest that Bush Sr. didn't know what was going on is the same as suggesting that he was blind to current events of the time. Bush Sr. may be a lot of things, but he's not stupid - There's no denying that he knew exactly what was going on.

How much does this matter, though? The whole country is sick of hearing about Vietnam. I'm sick of hearing about Vietnam, and looking at what I just wrote, I'm thinking about deleting it because I'm just rehashing a bunch of nonissues. Besides, this was all brought up in 1999 and Dubya brushed it off then, so why bring it up again?

Because it's a vital part of a story about crimes committed by Bush in 1997, information that doesn't hark back to a war that nobody wants to forget. The Vietnam connection is here is important because it was still an issue back in 1997, and Barnes know Dubya's secret. He could have opened his mouth at anytime and ended Bush's political career. So Dubya dodging the draft is relevant to the more current story about Dubya committing crimes while he was an elected official.

Second: "GTech and Littwin settled for $300,000? So what? Many corporations settle lawsuits instead of fighting them."

That's true, and I can't say I'm surprised that GTech settled with Littwin. However, I contend that they only settled because they knew they were guilty, and Littwin obviously had the evidence to prove it.

Let me present a different argument: Back in 1999, I had job interview with GTech. I had all the qualifications for the position, and at the time I lived next door to a manager at GTech who put in a good word for me, so I should have had a leg up on the competition and been a shoe-in for the job. But I was never hired, and GTech never gave me the reason why my application for employment was denied.

What would happen if I claimed that I was discriminated against and filed a civil lawsuit against GTech? Do you think I would have received a $300,000 settlement? No, of course not, because I don't have the evidence to support a case against them.

Since GTech saw that it was more cost effective to settle with Littwin, this can only mean one thing: Litttwin had the evidence to sustain a trial against GTech. Littwin had the evidence to prove that GTech gave a $23 million payoff to Barnes because he could use his influence over Dubya to force the state of Texas to keep their contract with GTech.

Those are the facts. I've done the research, and I can back up everything I have said. Anybody who still thinks that Dubya isn't guilty of corruption is simply living in denial.

Sigh...

Johnny Ramone, 1948-2004. First Joey, then Dee Dee... It's just sad. Sorry Kerry. :(

...to the newer readers here, Kerry is one of my older sisters, and she posts comments a lot. When I was 9, she got me into the Ramones. (There's nothing like a 9 year old asking his Mom what a "Teenage Lobotomy" is.) When I was 16, she took me to my first show to see the Ramones. I saw them with her again at 17, and the band broke up shortly afterwards. Since then, I've seen the Queers so many times that Joe Queer and I are on a first name basis now. The Queers used to open for the Ramones, and are well recognized as being the band that best captures the spirit of the Ramones. The Ramones have had a heavy influence on my musical tastes and style of drumming. So, I mean.. I love the Ramones, and this just sucks. It just feels so tragic.

I love this shit

So I found a news article about Bush and Kerry that actually deals with an issue - the Economy. But this Christian Science Monitor piece is so horribly balanced that I'd rather be subjected to Swift Boat Dipshit propaganda 24/7.

The first economist they quote works for the Heritage Foundation, but a Bank of America economist, Mickey Levy, takes center stage. Keep in mind that Levy's former employer was the American Enterprise Institute while reading this passage:

On taxes, for instance, Bank of America economist Mickey Levy describes Kerry as a traditional Democrat who would raise taxes and spending. Kerry has said he would restore the income tax rate on those making more than $200,000 a year to the level they were before the Bush tax cuts, putting the money into healthcare reforms.

CS Monitor let's Levy's comment about Kerry increasing spending slide despite recent media reports about Bush's proposed spending going through the roof, clocking in at over $3 trillion. In fact, Levy doesn't even mention how the size of our federal government has increased more under Bush than it did under Clinton. And on the topic of big spending, Levy doesn't even mention the war in Iraq.

Nope, there's not too much bias in this article. And it gets worse:

Kerry would also raise taxes on dividends and capital gains. In addition, the Kerry staff is exploring raising the cap on earnings subject to payroll taxes above their present level of about $88,000 a year.

The latter, says Mr. Levy, would be a "gigantic tax increase" hitting business as well as individuals, and thereby eventually affecting all workers.

In comparison, President Bush proposes making his temporary tax cut permanent, including ending the estate tax.

So after painting Kerry as a big spender who would increase the size of the government, Bush is trumpeted for his tax cuts. But there's no mention of those cuts shifting more of the tax base onto the backs of the middle class and the poor. Couple this information with the fact that Bush is spending so much that it would make a socialist blush, and two huge rhetorical question remains: Who will pay for Bush's big spending ways? Wouldn't it require a tax increase?

The reason why Kerry's tax plan is superior is because it shifts more of the tax burden onto the backs of the rich, where it belongs. Those fuckers can afford to pay increased taxes and I can't.

After framing Kerry as a big spending asshole, the article finally mentions Bush's spending.

But [Heritage Foundation economist] Beach is concerned with the growth in spending under Bush.

Notice the extreme lack of details. Even after quoting Clinton economist Robert Reich in an attempt to balance things out, the details I mentioned are still nowhere to be found.

The framing continues:

Bush: Passed $1.7 trillion in broad-based tax cuts to stimulate economic growth. Wants to make the cuts permanent and review how to simplify the tax code. ...

Kerry: Says he would restore 1990s tax rates for those earning over $200,000, but make other tax cuts permanent. Would cut taxes on businesses by 5 percent.

So when Bush proposes tax cuts, it's to "stimulate economic growth." But when Kerry proposes tax cuts, it's.. Well, they don't have a descriptive sentence for it at all. I guess Bush's tax cuts are better!

Excuse me while I gouge my eyes out. If this is what qualifies for talking about issues this election, I'm gonna cry.

Vietaq

Just how bad is it in Iraq right now? Let's ask Christopher Allbritton.

I don't know if I can really put into words just how bad it is here some days. Yesterday was horrible - just horrible. While most reports show Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra as "no-go" areas, practically the entire Western part of the country is controlled by insurgents, with pockets of U.S. power formed by the garrisons outside the towns. Insurgents move freely throughout the country and the violence continues to grow.

I wish I could point to a solution, but I don't see one. People continue to email me, telling me to report the "truth" of all the good things that are going on in Iraq. I'm not seeing a one. A buddy of mine is stationed here and they're fixing up a park on a major street. Gen. Chiarelli was very proud of this accomplishment, and he stressed this to me when I interviewed him for the TIME story. But Baghdadis couldn't care less. They don't want city beautification projects; they want electricity, clean water and, most of all, an end to the violence.

And in the midst of all this violence, most of the Iraqi Interim Government is out of town. Security Advisors, heads of important ministries and the chief of the new Mukhabarat are all mysteriously absent. The Iraqi security forces are a joke, with the much talked about Fallujah Brigade disbanded for being feckless and - worse - riddled with insurgents who were being paid and trained by the U.S. Marines.

Nope, nobody saw this one coming from a mile away before Bush decided to invade.

But, but, there's no jungle!

During the run up to the war in Iraq, I loved it when hawks dismissed claims that Iraq could possibly be another Vietnam by saying that Iraq was all desert and it had no jungles, so obviously there's no place for the enemies to hide!

Iraq has CITIES, you fucking dipshits. There's plenty of places to hide when you're engaged in urban combat. And where do you think Iraqis lived, out in the fucking desert with little access to food and water? It was possible for people in Vietnam to live in small villages since jungles have vegetation, water, etc. Did the hawks actually believe that Iraq was just a bunch of little shit desert villages that nobody could hide in? Is that what the hawks actually thought?

God, these are the brains behind the war. No wonder it's FUBAR.

Oi...

The bad news just keeps pouring in this morning. Now there's a report that Syria performed chemical weapons tests on Darfur refugees. I'm hoping this report is incorrect, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for another article saying it's a hoax. The brush-aside treatment given to the Darfur refugees in the Arab world, particularly from the Arab League, has been absolutley reprehensible. There's 10,000 people dying a month, and I honestly don't think they give a damn because their main interest is in protecting Sudan's Islamist government. Seeing stories like this, and knowing how the Arab League, and countries like China and Pakistan, have dragged their feet on the Darfur genocide makes me lose hope in the world getting it's shit together quickly enough to avoid mass deaths that make 10,000 a month look tiny. Because that is what's coming for the people of Darfur.

So true...

"The president wants you to believe that this record is the record of the victim of circumstances, the result of bad luck, not bad decisions," Kerry said in his speech. "Well, Mr. President, when it comes to your record, we agree -- you own it."

"His is the excuse presidency -- never wrong, never responsible, never to blame ... no, it's not our fault; no, there's nothing wrong; no, we can't do better; no, we haven't made a single mistake," Kerry said.

Kick him in the teeth, John!

"Chemical abortion" my ass

It's truly unbelievable that some religious fruitcake doctors and pharmacists are refusing to distribute birth control on the grounds that it causes "chemical abortions." It's even worse when state legislatures are trying to create laws to protect these assholes.

This year 12 states took steps to try to introduce so-called conscience clauses. They allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense drugs, including the Pill, on moral grounds, without losing their jobs. ...

"There was an incident where a pharmacist who worked in a retail drug store refused on conscience to fill a prescription and that individual was terminated from employment," Mr Gielow says.

"That, I believe, set the stage for concern there might be employment discrimination opportunity here if in fact you listened to your conscience instead of doing what the boss told you to do."

Excuse me, but employment discrimination? Try religious discrimination, and guess who's being discriminated against.

This is absolutely ridiculous. As a man, I can't imagine going to the pharmacy and being denied, say, the antibiotics that I need. If the pharmacist told me that it was their belief that I couldn't have these drugs, then I certainly hope their ass would be fired for not doing their goddamn fucking job. I see no difference between that situation and what some women have to go through right now just to have access to the pill. Since when was "employment discrimination" defined as a pharmacist not being able to enforce their religion upon unsuspecting victims who merely want to purchase drugs off them? How far is the religious right willing to go to deny women of any choice they have concerning their bodies?

Honest to fucking god, these people are absolutely insane. And I know the choices in this year's election don't look too great, but if Bush gets reelected, then this is what we have to look forward to. Make no mistake, abortions will be outlawed during a second Bush term, and access to birth control will take a serious bodyblow.

Stories like this remind of just how critical it is to get Kerry in the White House. I'd much rather deal with a moderate Republicrat than this bullshit.

Big Huge Government Republicans

Needlenose has all the details about what most Republicans would have you believe is Ted Kennedy's creamy wet dream, but is actually the big spending agenda of the Bush administration.

The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.

A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.
...
And Bush's agenda has many costs the administration has not publicly estimated. For instance, Bush said in his speech that he would continue to try to stabilize Iraq and wage war on terrorism. The war in Iraq alone costs $4 billion a month, but the president's annual budget does not reflect that cost.

All that spending and Bush tries telling us there will be more tax cuts. What-fucking-ever.

"And, you know, he's got emotional problems, man." 'You mean... beyond pacifism?'

Rimone sent me a link to a huge list of Big Lebowski quotes. I torn between laughing my ass off while reading all of these, or trolling for news... So if you don't see much posted to the blog this morning, blame her. ;>

...

Walter Sobchak : Is this your homework, Larry? Is this your homework, Larry?
The Dude : Look, man...
Walter Sobchak : Dude, please? Is this your homework, Larry?
The Dude : Just ask him about the car.
Walter Sobchak : Is this yours, Larry? Is this your homework, Larry?
The Dude : Is that your car out front?
Walter Sobchak : Is this your homework, Larry?
The Dude : We know it's his fucking homework! Where's the fucking money, you little brat?
Walter Sobchak : Look, Larry. Have you ever heard of Vietnam?
The Dude : Oh, for Christ's sake, Walter...
Walter Sobchak : You're entering a world of pain, son. We know that this is your homework. We know that you stole a car.
The Dude : And the fucking money.
Walter Sobchak : And the fucking money. And, we know that this is your homework.
The Dude : We're going to cut your dick off, Larry.
Walter Sobchak : You're killing your father, Larry!

Sorry, sorry, I digress. No more Lebowski for me tonight, or else the Dude might cut my dick off.

Bloggers for Truth

It's amazing to see how the Bush/Barnes/GTech story has exploded across the blogosphere. After I launched Operation OUTROVE on Monday, Needlenose picked up the story that same day. I imagine this led to Ezra at Pandagon posting it on Tuesday, and then quite a lot of people started talking about it. Pandagon's post received over 60 comments and 17 trackbacks, and by Wednesday the story reached Blogdex.

Here's some other blogs supporting this story.

• In Search of Utopia
  
• Oliver Willis
  
• The Gamer's Nook
  
• Liquid List
  
• Pacific Views
  
• FunctionalAmbivalent
  
• SoapBoxBlog
  
• E Pluribus Unum
  
• Fiat Lux
  
• yelladog
  
• John P. Hoke's Asylum
  
• RuminateThis
  
• A Partially Examined Life
  
• John Moltz
  
• Lean Left
  
• 100 wild-eyed unfair and unbalanced monkeys typing (heh)
  
• The Island of Balta
  
• Unfogged
  
• Brilliant at Breakfast
  
• Jack O'Toole
  
• Post No Bills
  
• Just the Facts, Ma'am
  
• Pusillanimous Wanker II
  
• Mr Furious
  
• SteveAudio
  
• Blog of the Moderate Left
  
• The Scooter's Freakin' Wicked Weblog!
  
• Still Working on a Dream
  
• King County Democrats
  
• Bending Towards Justice
  
• What You Can Get Away With

The explosion of this story across the blogosphere in such a short amount of time is just amazing, and we need to keep it up until it hits the mainstream press. If you're still talking about memos, stop - You've got something else to explore now. Better yet, we've finally got a story that will put Bush on the defensive.

I'll be continuing my research and making a few calls to Dan Mills and GTech soon.

Jesse from Gotham City 13 is back!

Swing by and say hello.

"The slut is out now. She's dead."

And other musings on the downfall of, uhm, slutware?

And if men wear revealing clothing, do they call it "Assholewear"?

Operation OUTROVE update

After Barnes received his $23 million pay off from GTech in February, 1997, guess how long it took the Texas Lottery Commission to begin asking questions about GTech's high priced consulting contracts again? Two days.

In fact, the commission began questioning why GTech's consulting contracts were so high in November, 1996. A month later, it was revealed that GTech had hired a man named Mike Moeller as a consultant. Moeller just happened to be a longtime friend and future husband to then-Texas Lottery Director Nora Linares. Couple this information with the actions of J. David Smith, GTech's former national sales manager who had to resign in 1994 amid charges that he received kickbacks from high priced GTech consultants and paid off officials in states where GTech were trying to land contracts. The federal case against Smith failed, but a New Jersey case led to a 5 1/4 years prison sentence.

So what does this have to do with Bush? Plenty. GTech's past history shows us that they sometimes lack an ethical approach to obtaining state contracts, and we now know that GTech knew their Texas contract was in hot water as early as November, 1996. I would naturally expect a company in danger of losing a contract worth more than $100 million to actively divise methods to keep that contract, so I have no doubt that GTech executives had a few brainstorming sessions to figure out how they should approach this Texas situation.

Suddenly, 4 months later in February, 1997, the man who could possibly ruin George W. Bush's political career has $23 million burning a hole in his pocket, all thanks to GTech. This payoff came under the pretense of buying out Barnes' contract after the Texas Lottery Commission began questioning why GTech consultants were making millions. If this isn't making sense, let me rephrase it: the commission was bitching about GTech paying people like Barnes $3 million a year, so GTech "solves" the problem by paying him $23 million.

Still scratching your head? Don't worry, you're not alone.

GTech's $23 million pay off to Barnes is the basis of Lawrence Littwin's civil suit against the company. Littwin, a former vice president of GTech competitor Automated Wagering International, served 4 months as director of the Texas Lottery Commission before getting canned in October, 1997. After he was dismissed, the state lottery contract was not open to other bidders like he wished, and GTech stayed in Texas. (After this happened, two Bush aides, Reggie Bashur and Cliff Johnson, left the governors staff to become - you guessed it - lobbyists for GTech.)

Littwin contended that GTech wielded political influence to get him fired, and cited that part of this influence was paying off Barnes. Barnes still had information against Bush that was worth its weight in gold, so he still held influence over the governor.

GTech, a billion dollar corporation that surely has a legal department, found it was more cost effective to settle out of court with a man who doesn't have the resources of a billion dollar corporation with a legal department, and GTech gave Littwin $300,000. An Austin American-Statesman article from 10/30/99 lists the terms of settlement:

Under terms of the settlement, Littwin "admits that he has no personal knowledge of any of the criminal activity alleged in support of his claims against Gtech."

Littwin also agreed to give to Gtech or destroy all documents produced by the litigation, including transcripts of Barnes' deposition.

Barnes' deposition held some importance because it was the first time he admitted to helping Bush get into the Air National Guard. As for the rest of the documents, I have a couple questions: What is GTech trying to hide? And if they were innocent of Littwin's accusations, then why didn't they fight him in court?

Remember, the lynchpin of Littwin's case was that GTech used a $23 million payoff to Barnes so he would influence Bush. GTech settled, and got all the documentation from the case destroyed.

Just think about what a story this is without factoring in the letter Palast obtained which ties everything together.

[Sources. All articles referenced obtained through Lexis/Nexis.]
[Thanks to Erza at Pandagon for picking up the story.]

Hurricane Political

It's bad enough that the Bush family is forcing Ralph onto the ballot in Florida, ruining any sembelence of a checks and balance system in the process, but they don't havr to rub salt into our wounds with the bullshit excuse of blaming Hurricane Ivan.

Mrs Hood, who was appointed by Governor Jeb Bush, the president's brother, said she was obliged to overrule a judge's preliminary court ruling because Hurricane Ivan might prevent the judge from holding a final hearing.

The approaching hurricane had raised "a substantial question as to when such a hearing" would be heard, she said.

Democrats retorted that Ivan was not even due to strike the state capital, Tallahassee, where the judge sits. The Florida Democratic chairman, Scott Maddox, said the decision was "blatant political manoeuvring by Jeb Bush to give his brother a leg up on election day" in November.

Election. Fucking. Fraud.

Now presenting Loaded Mouth's No Shit! Moment of the Day

Listening to NPR News talk about Hurricane Ivan, I just learned that hurricane winds "can cause a lot of damage," which was their segway to a clip of an "expert" telling us just what can be damaged. Trialer homes, houses, etc.

Gee, I didn't know all that could be damaged in a hurricane!

Come on, kids. Say it with me on 3.. 2.. 1.. NO SHIT!

The economy's doing great!

Between March, 2001 and April, 2004, we lost 403,300 computer jobs.

Domo arigato, Ms. Roboto

I'll be blogging lightly today because most of my time will be spent researching the Bush/Barnes/GTech story, but this blog would become boring if that's all I wrote about for the next week. But since I'm too occupied to write about anything else, I'll be lazy to let others do the writing for me. So here's an interesting post I read on Greenpass tonight.

How to become a feminine robot

My roommate Nicole and I had a good laugh over a book called "Find a Husband after 35 (Using what I learned at Harvard Business School)". Forget the fact that HBS should NEVER have agreed to allow its name to be used on the cover of this utterly embarassing book. Forget the fact that the cover is pink and purple with soft photos of gold wedding bands. This book is proof that the feminist movement has most positively crawled off into a hole somewhere and died in squalor.

Some sample advice:

"Please don't shoot me as the messenger, but the feminine look that most men tell me they like is longer hair, flowing skirts, soft fabrics, an ever-so-slightly revealing neckline, small-scale jewelery, and manicured fingernails and toenails."

Sounds like a hippy with a manicure.

"I'm going to make one tiny exception and bend the femininity rules just once for post-35 women. Because there are fewer single men around for you now, I think it's okay to make one initial, low-key contact with a man you'd like to date but who has not shown interest in you yet....The important thing is not to break the femininity rules twice."

That's the one exception to being a Stepford wife. Great.

After reading this book (and all the rave reviews it got from Oprah and Fortune magazines), and thinking back to what I said about it being more acceptable in today's society for women to admit intimidation and fear, I don't think I seem like a traitor to my sex or Republican-lite any more. If this book is in print and popular, then we have many MANY more underlying problems to solve before more women start making their voices heard in the political or internet sphere. I'm starting to believe that the balkanization of the feminist movement has made it more possible for dangerous crap like this to get seriously marketed and sold.

"My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal, which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina."

So I rolled out of bed an hour ago to find that Pandagon has joined Operation OUTROVE, and their post about Bush/Barnes/GTech has 49 comments and 11 trackbacks, plus Erza is using Lexis/Nexis to find more articles pertaining to the case.

Nothing like rolling out of bed happy.

I know there's been a lot of new hits here today, so let me explain myself: I work third shift, and most of my blogging is done while you're in bed. Right now, all I want to do is sift through the 10 or so articles I found on Lexis and all the comments about the story on Pandagon, find out as much as possible. But I got all those other things to take care of right now, like showering and food shopping so I don't starve at work tonight, plus cooking a lunch for myself so I don't starve at work, etc... So I can't give my full attention to blogging and this story until midnight. Which I'm grumbling about right now.

But I do hope you're enjoying Big Lebowski day. ;>

"Ve vant the money, Lebowski!"

Roxanne has a must-read open letter to Dubya and Kerry about what she cares about this election. It's about actual issues! I know this may come as a shocker to most candidates, but there are plenty of us pleabian voters out here who do actually shit a about the issues. We aren't worried about whether or not Kerry actually earned his purple heart in the middle of a zone warzone that Bush so conveniently avoided.

Reading it makes me wish that presidential elections were about actual issues, then maybe we would get somewhere as a country. Sigh.

"You said it, man. Nobody fucks with the Jesus," Atrios.

Is it just me, or has Atrios been pissed off lately. I think he's suffering from a mild case of liberal burnout. We all get it. It's when you're so inundated by the constant lies from Republicans and the media that it just overwhelms you, and you can only express yourself in terms of pure anger.

This is a good and a bad thing. I have been enjoying his shrillness lately.

"Shut the fuck up, Donny."

In a tactic that just screams Republican in attitude, a lady gets shitcanned from her job for daring to sport a Kerry bumpersticker on her car. I guess the Republicans think they haven't destroyed enough jobs yet, eh?

"You have no frame of reference, Donny. You're like a child who walks into the middle of a movie..."

Al-Qa'ida: 70,000 strong and exploding. Of course, hardly any of those 70,000 were in Iraq until Bush went cowboy on the country... So glad we're focusing on the real clear and present dangers in this war on terror.

"Son, this is what happens when you FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS!"

Bush continues his class treatment of our allies as Turkey threatens to pull all their support of US efforts in Iraq if we don't stop attacking Tal Afar, which has a large Turkmen population.

Operation OUTROVE update

Needlenose is awesome.

I didn't get a chance to call Mr. Dan Mills yesterday. While I was preparing some questions to ask, I started doing more research. And more research. And yet more research. I went to the bookstore and read the first chapter of Ivins' "Shrub," used Lexis/Nexis to find as many articles as I could about the topic (there weren't too many, and I've got the screen captures to prove it), and found some flaws in Palast's reporting. For example, he says Ben Barnes was Texas' Lt. Governor at the time he called in the favor for Bush, but Barnes was actually Speaker of the House - He became Lt. Governor the next year, 1969.

I found out Palast also talks about this story in his book, where he mistakingly labels GTech as a New Jersey corporation. They are actually based in Rhode Island, and I should know since I once had a job interview in their corporate headquarters.

Some of this nitpicking is important, since the letter Palast unconvered says Barnes was the Lt. Governor at the time and he wasn't, which sheds some possibility on the letter being a hoax. That I cannot confirm at this point in time, though most of what was said in the letter makes sense when I read other articles about the story.

My other problem with the letter is that it never mentions the $23 million payoff GTech gave to Barnes. It hints that there was a deal between Barnes pitched to Bush on behalf of GTech, and, of course, Barnes would expect a payment in return. But I was able to use Lexis/Nexis to find a Washington Post article from 1999 which confirms that GTech dismissed Barnes as their a lobbyist, buying out his contract for "$23.1 million." Another article places the date for this action in Feb., 1997.

This poses a problem that I haven't been able to solve yet. In 1997, there was a corruption scandal between GTech and the Texas Lottery Commission. I need to read more about this scandal, but from what I understand so far, a man named Lawrence Littwin was appointed president of the commission in May, 1997. He wanted to rebid the Texas state lottery contract, which basically meant that GTech would lose their contract to one of the largest state lottery systems in the country. But in October, 1997, Littwin got shitcanned, and the new commission president gave the lottery contract to GTech.

In 1999, I believe, Littwin filed a civil suit claiming that he was fired because Barnes made a deal with Bush. Barnes wouldn't talk about getting Bush into the Air Guard, and Bush would make sure GTech got business from Texas. This is where Palast thinks the $23 million payoff comes into play, because Barnes would obviously want something out of the deal.

The only problem I see if that Barnes was dismissed by GTech in February, and Littwin was fired in October, how did GTech know to pay him off? Was there a pay off? Did GTech know they were in hot water and try covering their tracks by making it look like they dismissed Barnes in February? That, as far as I can tell, is what Palast's sources claim.

To me, $23 million to buyout Barnes contract does seem fishy to me. That's an awful lot of money to shell out just to get rid of somebody.

It's also worth noting that Barnes constantly denied that he pulled any strings to get Bush into the Air Guard until this civil suit in 1999, then he had to admit it because he was under oath. He admitted to giving a lot of rich kids a leg up on guard admissions, because there were a lot of Texas daddies calling in favors. Such was the culture of Texas' rich and politically connected in 1968. Barnes singing like a bird about getting Bush into the guard is a recent development, because in the past he would deny it in public.

For now, my tasks are to research the civil trial further and see if I can find any other reasons why GTech gave Barnes $23 million. And even though Palast says in his book that Mills never did a thing with the letter he uncovered, I plan in trying to reach Mills soon. Maybe I should also see if I can get ahold of Littwin.

"You're entering a world of pain."

Conscription at its finest.

A man who served the eight years required under his ROTC contract remains an Army reservist obliged to report for active duty because he failed to sign a resignation letter, a federal judge has ruled.

"I am the walrus?"

Corruption in Florida's election process? Nah, never! I mean, it must be perfectly legal for Jeb Bush's administration to defy an injuction by a Florida Circuit Court judge to keep Nader off the ballot by ordering all counties to place Nader on the ballot. Nothing partisan about this at all! And hey, whoever needed all these silly checks and balances anyway?

Unfuckingbelievable.

"How're you gonna keep them down on the farm when they've seen Karl Hungus?"

Allawi may take away Fallujah's right to vote in Iraq's January elections. For his excuse, he uses his rather dim view of democracy:

"If for any reason 300,000 people cannot vote because terrorists decide so, then frankly 300,000 people ... is not going to alter 25 million people voting. What we are after really is implementing the political process."

Uh, buddy, did you happen to pay attention to our elections 4 years ago?

"Lord, you can imagine where it goes from here..." 'He fixes the cable?'

We're winning over more hearts and minds in Operation Chest Beating: "As many as 110 people were killed in Iraq yesterday and over 200 wounded in one of the bloodiest days of the occupation in months."

"I need my fucking johnson!" 'What do you need that for, Dude?'

Capitol Banter links to a Gadflyer article which discusses Bush's manliness, or lack thereof. This is a topic that's been on my mind lately. How much of a role does Bush's testosterone levels play in someones decision to vote for him?

I suppose I'm different from other men since I actively try to avoid fights. The last time I had a physical altercation I reacted to was in fifth grade, a bully targetted me in the background specifically because I wouldn't fight back. So everyday this kid would jump me, and after a couple minutes he'd get me on the ground. Even though I wouldn't fight back, I was so used to getting jumped that I learned how to tough it out and make my opponent work to get my ass to the ground. But, naturally, I got sick of the constant harassment, and followed up on my Dad's advice - "Hit'em!" The next time he jumped me, I socked him one. Truth be told, it was a poor punch, but I made my point. Even if it took me a couple months to finally sock him, I still didn't want to do it.

The last time I got smacked was when I was 14. At this age, I looked pretty similar to what I am now - six foot, big bones, pretty strong, looked like I could play linebacker for the high school football team. So it's not like a little kid was getting the business, and I could have easily put up a good fight. I just prefer not to fight, so after I received an open palmed smack across the face, I simply did nothing. I knew it was an invitation to take the gloves off, but I wasn't accepting it, and there was no way I would throw any blows unless I was forced to defend myself. Eventually, my opponent laughed at me, got his friends to laugh at me, and walked away.

What do you think most men would have done in such a situation? I think, unfortunately, that this is the crux of the matter for many voters in this election. We all know two things: the majority of white males would beat the shit out of anybody who slaps them, and the majority of white males are going to vote for Bush.

How many Bush voters are worried about the issues? They may pretend to be, but you know in the back of their mind that they think Kerry is a wimp and they are scared that he wouldn't defend the country. Dick Cheney perfectly articulated this mindset last week when he instigated that the country would get hit with another terrorist attack if Kerry is elected. This mindset that we constantly have to display our strength is a powerful force on the right. These people don't think when they are hit, they simply react. They think, "How could somebody dare hit me!," without stopping to think about the reasons why the situation came to pass and their role in bringing it on. Then they foolishly believe that just as long as they display their strength, make sure people know that they are a force to be reckoned with, then they'll never be hit again. That's what the war in Iraq is all about. This is why there's no huge public outcry about the lack of WMDs or the general uselessness of this war. Your typical Bush voter doesn't care about evidence, their concern is to simply beat the everloving shit out of something, anything, then beat their chests while screaming "DON'T FUCK WITH ME!!" That's what the Iraq war is, that's what Vietnam was, and that's what the Cold War was. We had to put on an overt display of force, otherwise the communists/islamists/fill-in-the-blank enemy will think of us as weak and take us over. Remember, if we don't stop the Viet Cong now, we'll be fighting them in the streets of San Francisco!

Problem is we're not.

Now one can argument that's an outdated example since 9/11 happened on our soil and we know that al-Qa'ida maintains terrorist cells within our borders. Those people would be correct, the fight has been brought to us, and I'm concerned about al-Qa'ida. My concern is the reason why I oppose the war in Iraq, because all Operation Chest Beating has done is given Osama bin Laden a great reason to recruit new al-Qa'ida members, and the size of his organization has increased. Al-Qa'ida isn't on the run, and if we're not careful, they'll be the ones flexing their muscles in the future.

But the typical Bush voter doesn't think about this. You see, it's just not manly to think after you've been smacked around. They simply go with the gut reaction to strike back and strike hard, instead of weighing your options and strike wisely if it's needed. The latter, as far as I'm concerned, is a basic tenet of national security, but they don't think about this. For many Bush voters, they are casting their votes based on a gut instinct of how they'll react to getting hit. Is it any wonder why many Americans are scared of Republicans, and why many other people around the world are scared of Americans?

"Yeah, well, I still jerk off manually."

All of today's post titles will be quotes from The Big Lebowski. Heh.

Rumsfeld is completely responsible for Abu Ghraib

Or, in plainer English, Sy Hersh has a new book! That link gives you a long excerpt from the text, and I wish I could say that Rumsfeld's responsibility was the only bad news.

There was, we now know, a fantastical quality to the earnest discussions inside the White House in 2002 about the good and bad of the interrogation process at Guantánamo. Rice and Rumsfeld knew what many others involved in the prisoner discussions did not - that sometime in late 2001 or early 2002, the president had signed a top-secret finding, as required by law, authorising the defence department to set up a specially recruited clandestine team of special forces operatives and others who would defy diplomatic niceties and international law and snatch - or assassinate, if necessary - identified "high-value" al-Qaida operatives anywhere in the world.

Equally secret interrogation centres would be set up in allied countries where harsh treatments were meted out, unconstrained by legal limits or public disclosure. The programme was hidden inside the defence department as an "unacknowledged" special-access programme (SAP), whose operational details were known only to a few in the Pentagon, the CIA and the White House.

The SAP owed its existence to Rumsfeld's desire to get the US special forces community into the business of what he called, in public and internal communications, "manhunts", and to his disdain for the Pentagon's senior generals. In the privacy of his office, Rumsfeld chafed over what he saw as the reluctance of the generals and admirals to act aggressively. Soon after September 11, he repeatedly made public his disdain for the Geneva convention. Complaints about the United States' treatment of prisoners, Rumsfeld said, in early 2002, amounted to "isolated pockets of international hyperventilation".

Look at all the new toys the Bush administration has brought to us!

I found a list of now-legal assault weapons in thr Guardian. Kinda funny how they're accross the pond and reporting on this stuff...

TEC-9, TEC-22 and TEC-DC9

Semi-automatic pistols with a long magazine in front of the trigger. The TEC-9 was one of the guns used by the killers at the Columbine high school.

Woo hoo! All you high schools better watch out! And the irony here is that Bush is helping Michael Moore, because now he'll soon have opportunities to make "Bowling for..." sequels!

SWD M-10, M-11, M-11-9 and M-12

Civilian versions of the MAC-10 assault pistol, they are designed to spray fire bullets over a wide area.

I guess this is for the Nugenite that hunts 50 deer at once, right? Totally useful without thinking about all the possible deaths it could cause!

Oh, and the big one is back. That's right... The AK47 is perfectly fucking legal now!

All this talk of guns makes me want to head to Field Day this Sunday. Every September in my town, the local sportsmens club opens their doors to the public, and everyone drops by to shoot guns, throw axes, etc. Some city liberals I tell this to are horrified that I would even partake in such an event, but truth be told, I actually like to shoot a gun every once in a while. Even if it's just to see how much my aim still sucks. But this year should be more entertaining, because I'll get to wander around ground zero of firearms opinions a week after Bush made all these old toys legal again. I may have to bring my camera.

But will he have a Geiger Counter?

North Korea is allowing a British diplomat to visit their blast site of the explosion heard round the world. Looks like it might not be as nuclear as we thought.

How many Darfur refugees die per month?

10,000. And to rub some salt on those wounds, these deaths are quite preventable.

"Thousands, including thousands of children under five are dying every month from diseases which can be easily prevented and treated," the WHO Director-General, Lee Jong-Wook said, urging an increase in emergency aid.

Operation OUTROVE: Step One

I've been harping about Greg Palast's Bush/Barnes/GTech story all weekend. And unfortunately, I seem to be the only person in the blogosphere who has caught onto it, and that's a huge problem since I'm not widely read. I plan on digging for more facts about the story (some people would call that journalism), and then trying to get the A-List bloggers to pay attention to it.

First, I'll repeat the jist of Palast's article. Then I'll rundown the steps of "Operation OUTROVE," where eventually I'm going to ask you, dear reader, to also get off your rump and do something.

First, Palast's story:

• He covered a confidential letter, sent anonymously to U.S. Attorney Dan Mills in Austin, from some Justice Department doucments
  
• The letter details how Bush made a deal with Barnes.
  
• Barnes kept his mouth shut about Bush getting favorable treatment when being assigned to the National Guard
  
• Bush wouldn't let GTech lose its billion dollar Texas State Lottery contract
  
• Barnes was GTech's chief lobbyist in Texas
  
• GTech gives Barnes $23 million in return for the deal he made with Bush
  

The letter was sent anonymously and not dated. Apparently, Dan Mills is actualy an assitant U.S. Attorney, and judging from this article, he still appears to be in Austin.

I'm going to try calling him tomorrow and see if I can get more information about the letter and what was done with it.

I know an anonymous letter sent to an assistant U.S. Attorney is pretty suspect, could be a hoax, and maybe we shouldn't believe a word of it. However, if a letter like this turned up about Kerry, the rabid right, and then the mainstream press, would be all over it. But Palast first reported on the existence of this letter in February of this year, and still nobody is talking about it. Not the press, but more importantly right now, not the left wing bloggers.

Just looking over Atrios this morning, I see another entry about fucking typewriters, and a flyer for Bush for his 1978 Congressional campaign where he lied about his military service. Both of these stories are counterproductive to the cause of getting him out of office. I am convinced that the memos are forgeries planted by Rove, and any talk about them acts as a smoke screen to keep us from talking about the real story involving Bush/Barnes/GTech which was on the cusp of making it into the mainstream. Therefore, here's plank one of Operation OUTROVE:

• STOP TALKING ABOUT TYPEWRITERS, FORGERIES, AND MEMOS

Talking about this "issue" means you're only playing into the hands of Rove's strategy.

Plank two of Operation OUTROVE:

• EMAIL THE A-LIST BLOGGERS ABOUT THE ACTUAL STORY
  
• POLITELY TELL THEM TO SHUT UP ABOUT TYPEWRITERS AND FORGERIES
  

Emailing the editors of mainstream press publications is great, and necessary, but unless we can generate a lot of emails then it's alo pretty useless. So email Atrios, Kos, Pandagon, Kevin Drum, Josh Marshall, and whoever else you can think of. Hell, firing off emails blogs like corrente and Needlenose, non-A-Listers who receive a lot of hits, may help. If they run with this story, it may be pushed onto the A-List blogs.

The key goal here is to get this story into the mainstream press, because this certainly shouldn't be the only place where it's discussed. I know to some this may sound like self-promotion on my part, but honestly, I could give a damn about the hits and could care less if you cite this blog or not when emailing an A-Lister. The point is to spread this story. It's too important to allow allegations of corruption and yet another Bush lie sit on the back burner when they could really damage Bush's campaign. So, I beg of you, please stop talking about typewriters and let's get to the real news.

I'll try to get ahold of Mr. Dan Mills in the morning. Or afternoon, depending upon when I wake up. I'm dead tired right now, so blogging for tonight is done.

Juan Cole explains the war on terror and how we helped al-Qa'ida get stronger

His piece is a must read. It's simple. concise, and should only take up five minutes of your time.

Let who debate?

Just another musing on Cult Leader Ralph who I now think looks like he's about to go Heaven's Gate on us any second now. Why should he be in the debates?

There was definitely a good argument for him to be in the debates in 2000, and I marched through the streets of Boston with a few thousand other Nader voters, and heard it fromt he hordes of union members, because he should have been in the debates. Before 2000, the rule was that a candidate who polled at 5% or more in 6 national polls ould get into the debates, which was how Ross Perot got induring his 1992 campaign. But in 2000, once Nader hit 5% in the polls, the bar was raised to 15% and thus shutting him out. I thought this was petty unfair, especially with the way Bush and Gore agreed with each other so much during those debates.

This election, I don't think Nader has hit 5% in any poll that was recently done. The highest I've seen him at is 2%. How come some people want to put a candidate who's only polling at 2% into the debates?

Furthermore, how come we don't hear about other candidates in the polls who obviously have more popular support than Nader? According to Ballot Access, Nader is on the ballot in 32 states with the potential to get on in 42. But the Libertarians Badnarik is on the ballot in 47 states, and the Constitution Party's Peroutka checks in with 38 states. The Green's David Cobb is running behind Nader, though, he only has 28 states. Yet the only third party candidate we hear about is Nader, despite the fact that Badnarik and Peroutka have more popular support. (As far as I'm concerned, these to candidates could play the spoilers role for Bush.) Why aren't pollsters asking people if they intend to vote for Badnarik or Peroutka? Why are they asking people if they'll vote for a less popular candidate like Nader? And how come nobody's in an uproar about a candidate who's on the ballot in 47 states getting shut out of the debates?

All we hear about is Ralph Ralph Ralph, but he's not the most popular third party candidate in 2004. Come November, pollsters are going to be in for a surprise when Badnarik and Peroutka get more votes.

Just when you need a medieval torture device laying around...

Bwwwahahahaha!

Bush gets a whipping in fetish lingerie video

As if Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was not enough, Republicans can now get steamed up by a four-minute video of a ruthless dominatrix whipping US President George W Bush in the Oval Office.

For its 10th anniversary, upmarket London corset and lingerie boutique Agent Provocateur has put a clip on its web site showing Bush, or rather an actor who looks like him, excitedly awaiting an after-lunch visit.

The dominatrix struts in on killer black stilettos, tying up the leader of the free world by the wrists.

She then twists his nipple with a plumber's wrench before performing a striptease and whipping him on his boyish white briefs.

The kinky sequence reaches its climax when another man crawls into the room like a dog, dressed head to toe in black latex.

Off comes his hood, and it is a goofy-grinning look-alike of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"It's tongue and cheek," Dee Modha, a spokeswoman for Agent Provocateur, said.

"It's just meant to be seen as a bit of frivolous fun, really."

The company has shops in New York and Los Angeles as well as London.

It's a very, very short list

How many left wing bloggers have reported Greg Palast's story about Bush/Barnes/GTech?

One. Me.

Guess how many news and wire services have reported the story? None, or so Lexis/Nexis tells me.

This is obviously a problem. I'll have more on the solution later.

Rove-ing thoughts

Anyone remember a book called "Fortunate Son"? Odds are that most of you won't. It was a book about Bush written by J. H. Hatfield and released during the early part of the presidential campaign in 1999. It was exhaustively researched and, among other things, revealed that Dubya used to be a cokehead. Given this and other details which it included, it had the potential to be a much more explosive book than this "Unfit for Command" bullshit that's authored by a bunch of ignoramuses who still think that we could have won the Vietnam War if it wasn't for those goddamn protesters.

So if books like "Unfit for Command" can receive oddles of press, how come "Fortunate Son" never made a dent in the prestige surrounding our selected leader? Because the author had one fault: Hatfield was a convicted criminal who had served his time.

You may be wondering, "What does that matter?" Honestly, it doesn't; an author should be judged based on the body of their work, not mistakes they have made in the past. But this is all the information needed by the Bush campaign (ie: Karl Rove) to discredit him. They obviously knew when the book was coming out, and just as it was released and started to gain steam in the press, the Bush campaign discredited the book by saying that the author was a convicted felon.

That's dirty politics, which is something that I've come to expect from the Bush campaign and Karl Rove. I've mentioned before that Rove is a political genius, and I honestly mean it. You have to respect the guy because he knows how to get candidates to win. This is the man who, in his early days, would waltz into a democratic candidates office, swipe a bunch of the candidates official letterhead, and send out embarrassing letters. Rove always thinks of a way to win, and you have to admit, he has a pretty good track record.

This is why I think Rove's fingerprints are all over the events of last week. The big story, that's been waiting to break for months while the mainstream media ignored it, is Ben Barnes coming out and admitting that he gave Bush special treatment that allowed him to become a pilot in the Natioanal Guard, and thus avoid getting drafted and shipped off to Vietnam. Barnes was the Lt. Governor of Texas in 1968, and when the favor to get Bush into the National Guard was called in, it was Barnes who took the call. He's admitting this, and quite honestly, this should be a huge story. What's worse, though, is that he could have revealed this information in 1994. Bush was making his first run for governor of Texas, and obviously, he wanted to keep Barnes story under wraps. At the time, Barnes represented a (RI based) corporation called GTech who were about to lose their contract to run the Texas state lottery. Bush agreed to give GTech a contract in return for Barnes keeping his mouth shut about Bush's past. GTech then gave Barnes $23 million for his work.

That's a story of corruption which has the potential to sink the Bush campaign, and it was on the cusp of making it into the mainstream press. So what happened instead? These memos turn up on 60 Minutes which are possibily forgeries, and everyone is talking about them.

The memos aren't the story; in fact, they don't even discuss what happened between Bush and Barnes. And for all we know, they could be fakes and CBS was duped. But if they were duped, then who's actually responsibile for the memos?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is just another Karl Rove prank. This fits his MO, and he's effectively wiped the Barnes story off all the potential front pages it could have graced. In the process, he's also tarnished the credibilty of CBS News, and of any story discussing Bush's dubious National Guard "service" record.

I don't suppose we'll ever find out if I'm correct, but the fact of the matter is that arguments over these memos have become the story. Even the left wing blogs and media watchdogs are gettting into it. Unfortunately, any further discussion of these memos only plays into the hands of those who want to keep the real story out of the limelight, and it seems like even the left wing bloggers have been duped.

Sunday is Cartoon Day!

As always, a couple by Ted Rall.

And even one by Steve Bell!