What a Killer Was Watching

Did a steady diet of right-wing radio and Glenn Beck influence Richard Poplawski, the man who allegedly murdered three Pittsburgh cops? Max Blumenthal reports.

Shorter: Yes.

On April 6, two days after the 22-year-old Richard Poplawski allegedly murdered three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a radio host named Alex Jones settled in before a microphone in his studio in Austin, Texas to do some damage control. “The mainstream media has certainly enjoyed tying me into this story,” Jones complained. “They’re attacking me and saying I’m delusional and there’s no New World Order… The Second Amendment, what the country’s founded on—it’s all my fault!”

Poplawski was a neo-Nazi wannabe who railed against blacks, Jews, “Zionists,” and gun control. And like many members of the far-right fringe, he allegedly visited Jones’ Web sites and posted alarming reports by Jones’ writers on the white supremacist message board, Stormfront. (Poplawski’s posts are here (no link from me - G), authored under the handle, “Braced For Fate.”) While Alex Jones generally avoids overt racism, he has found an eager audience on Stormfront by conjuring dark visions of an impending New World Order, claiming FEMA is secretly building a national concentration camp network, and announcing that President Barack Obama has planned mass gun seizures on his way to establishing a leftist dictatorship. “Remember, the first step in establishing a dictatorship is to disarm the citizens,” warned a March 13 commentary on Jones’ website, Prison Planet.

But hysterical warnings of government gun grabs and a socialist takeover of the U.S. are no longer the sole proprietary interest of fringe players like Jones. In the Obama era, Jones’ conspiracy theories have graduated to primetime on Fox News. And radicals like Poplawski are tuning in. [...]

'Radicals' seems to be shorthand for 'unhinged right-wing loonies with guns who just need a little push'. And the 'tard gasbags are there to give it to 'em.

...Jones interrupted a live broadcast by Fox News host Geraldo Rivera (Rivera was reporting at the time on “the secret world of restroom gay sex”)...

I'm glad Geraldo has found his niche...

David Neiwert, a veteran reporter on right-wing militia movements and author of the forthcoming book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right, explained that by co-opting conspiratorial rhetoric from the farthest shores of the right, mainstream conservative talkers can inflame the passions of paranoiacs like Poplawski to a dangerous degree. “It’s always been a problem when major league demagogues start promulgating false information for political gain,” Neiwert told me. “What it does is unhinge fringe players from reality and dislodges them even further. When someone like Poplawski hears Glenn Beck touting One World Government and they’re gonna take your gun theories, they believe then that it must be true. And that’s when they really become crazy.”

So where was all this talk of 're-education camps' and 'staging crises to impose martial law' and other stuff like that during the Bush years?

Why, on lefty blogs like this one, of course.

Here's the difference:

If you go back through the 12,000+ posts of the Brain, no links, heh, you will find a lot of stuff on these subjects, but other than some 'pitchforks and scythes' type metaphorical calls to action, you will not find one instance of where we actually called for armed insurrection against Bush, or with an eye towards launching the unhinged to violence against wingnuts-at-large. We called for Bush's and others' deaths many times, but only after due process of law. I think me 'n Fixer challenged everybody on the right to fistfights many times. There weren't any takers.

Of course there are fringe lefty loonies too, like PETA and Earth First, but I haven't heard of a Liberal going 'round the bend and shooting up right-wingers on the advice of lefty gasbags. We did advise folks to keep their weapons clean and their powder dry to protect themselves.

The far-right gasbags have kicked it up a notch into very dangerous territory. Freedom of speech does not permit shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater unless it's on fire and what they're doing is exactly that. People are already being killed by the fringe moron 'tards who believe the lies they tell.

The Repugs are out on their ass, and the shoe's on the other foot now. They're whiny-ass sore losers and will do anything, and I mean anything, to try and regain power by means outside the electoral process which threw their flunkies out, including inciting and fomenting deadly violence against those who disagree with their crap. They will disavow it and say they're not to blame for what their misguided and crazy followers do, but they are.

Someone, somehow, has to shut these bastards up before they burn this country down and get more people killed. In the meantime, keep your weapons clean and your powder dry like never before. Truth and reason are powerful things, but they ain't shit in a gunfight.

Update:

Grandpa Eddie's got a much better post on this than I could ever write.

The Torture Report

Andrew Sullivan, a gay Repug whom I respect because he may have seen the light. And unlike many Repugs, he admits it:

It's been another huge day of data-gathering in the years-long bid to get to the bottom of the secret and illegal torture program set up by Bush and Cheney as their central tool in the war on Jihadist terrorism. You can download the leaked - and devastating International Committee of the Red Cross report here. You can read about the chilling similarities between the Bush-Cheney techniques and those used by the Soviet gulag here. You can read more details of how doctors were implicated in monitoring and measuring the torture of human beings here. If you need confirmation that this new data is real and dispositive, then go read the partisan right blogs. Their total radio silence tells you something.

When the Repugs are quiet about anything, they're guilty as sin and know it and hope you don't think about it. When it suits them they understand TR's "speak softly". Most of the time they just "carry a big stick" at high volume, even if their 'stick' has the political and ideological equivalent of cotton candy wrapped around it. Seemingly tasty and filling, but no nutritional value and it's bad for you.

Just as a 'cotton candy' afterthought, my old friend Dave is an electrician. I saw him once prepare to do some work under a house in a very low crawl space that had about fifty years' worth of spiderwebs and their unappetizing content. He took a stick and painstakingly rolled up all the spiderwebs around it. He emerged from the crawl space and handed it to me with a big grin, "Here, have some bug-flavored cotton candy!". As yucky a treat as I've ever been offered. Fits what the Repugs are up to to a metaphorical T.

Sugar ain't the reason ...

Your kids are bouncing off the walls like the flying monkeys from Wizard of Oz, it's the rocket fuel:

...

My friend was really upset about this.

I'm upset that if you pull this shit in China you get executed.

What are the consequences here?

There are no consequences here. Do you think Pfizer will face any consequences in the U.S. for testing drugs on unwitting Africans?

A group of Nigerian families has sued the drugs giant Pfizer following the deaths of 11 children and injury to others who are said to have taken part in tests of a drug to treat meningitis.

...

The lawsuit, filed in a US District Court on Wednesday, seeks unspecified damages on behalf of 30 children who took part in trials in Kano, in northern Nigeria.

The suit alleges that the drug company did not obtain consent and did not explain that the proposed treatment was experimental.

...

They'll settle with the families for a pittance (for Pfizer, more than these poor people will see in ten lifetimes) and will be off the hook for what basically amounts to premeditated murder.

In the United States, only the average person is held accountable for their actions. If you have money, or are a big corporation, laws are merely a speed bump on the road to big profits.

Of Dogs and Cats ...

I saw this some years ago and Ms. Manitoba dug it up the other day. Makes me giggle each time. Heh ...

Quote of the Day

Digby:

...

The problem is that conservatism has shot its wad and there's nothing left. It's not a matter of individuals; it's a matter of philosophy. No matter who they trot out to mouth their tired old saws and boring mantras, nobody wants to hear it.

...

Presidentialism ...

This post stays on top today - G

Watching Euronews this weekend, I got to see a lot of our President speaking. I must say, it's nice to have someone who doesn't embarrass us at every turn. Speaking with my cousin in Germany confirmed many in Europe like him and are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding our foreign policy. He's saying the right things.

While I have great reservations about his Wall St. resurrection plan (more of the same to me), I do admire his vision in the international arena. His policy toward Iran, popular in Europe, is designed to get the Persians talking to us in an atmosphere of mutual respect. There is a reason our puppet, the Shah, was run out of there 30 years ago (read up on the history of the area) and a people who've been a civilization 5000 years before anyone realized there were two more continents to the west do not respond to threats from 'upstarts'. Something the Chimp and the neocons never understood. It's nice to see diplomacy given a real chance and hopefully, dialogue with Iran will ratchet down some of the tensions in the area.

His handling of the North Korean launch, though, does nothing to change the status quo in that region. While I understand quite well the fine line one must walk on the peninsula (close to a million men under arms on the north side of the DMZ and an insane leader who would think nothing of sending them south), Obama must find a way to break the 50 year cycle of demands and saber rattling while the North Korean people slowly die. Shoulda shot the thing down (as opposed to blowing it up on the pad; on North Korean soil - big difference in message), unless that weapons system doesn't work quite as well as the Bush Pentagon said it did. Diplomacy, in this case, probably won't work (though the South Koreans are very inclined to wait the Kim regime out though it might seriously bite them in the ass anyway) as there are already forces aligned to block any more sanctions. It seems Obama did the best he could in that sticky situation.

In all, I'm impressed with our President on this trip. He made a good start on rebuilding the American brand and repairing the damage the Republicans did to our international relations. Now, if he'd only realize his economic team is sleeping with the enemy ...

Gates Announces End To Production Of F-22

Think Progress

The decision is welcome on two fronts. First, the F-22 contributes little to U.S. national security. It has not flown a single mission in the Iraq or Afghanistan campaigns. Further, as the Center for American Progress’s Larry Korb explained in 2005, the F-22 was designed to address threats that the U.S. last faced during the cold war:

The F/A-22 Raptor is the most unnecessary weapon system being built by the Pentagon. In fact, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tried to do away with it in the summer of 2002 but backed off when his Air Force secretary threatened to resign over the issue. It was originally designed to achieve air superiority over Soviet fighter jets, which will never be built.

I think most of the fixed-wing aircraft combat usage in Afghanistan and Iraq these days is for Close Air Support (CAS). The planes for that are not first-line strike fighters of course, but they still fly too high and too fast to be very discerning about their targets. I propose a retro alternative that can fly low enough and slow enough that the pilot can tell a war party from a wedding party. For a buncha guys only with weapons to be a wedding party, it would have to in a pretty secure and liberated part of the country!

Empty yer Kalashnikov one last time at this, Osama. It will look good in Paradise if yer heater is still smokin' when you arrive. Kiss yer ass goodbye, but be sure to get yer lips off yer ass before you get there. That wouldn't look good at all. Heh.

Maybe you can pick yer nose with the tailhook too.

Douglas Skyraider - "A propeller-driven anachronism"

Speaking on behalf of anachronisms everywhere, just, sighhhh...

Italy muzzled scientist who foresaw earthquake

Raw Story

A powerful earthquake tore through central Italy on Monday killing more than 90 people as Renaissance buildings in a historic town were reduced to rubble.

We're not unfamiliar with earthquakes out here in California. I shudder to think of all the unreinforced masonry there must be in a medieval Italian town, or how you would go about earthquake-retrofitting it without destroying it. We have been reinforcing buildings out here since the Long Beach earthquake of 1933, and we don't have very many brick homes for the same reason. Frame houses will shake around a lot, but they'll stay standing even if they are damaged, and if one does fall on you, you stand a better chance of surviving than if tons of masonry fall on you.

That said, my heart goes out to the affected folks over there.

Probably the most research on earthquakes in California is in how to predict them. See the Parkfield earthquake experiment just for one. It looks like this is coming along OK.

The quake hadn't been completely unexpected. Italy muzzled a scientist who foresaw it.

"Vans with loudspeakers had driven around the town a month ago telling locals to evacuate their houses after seismologist Gioacchino Giuliani predicted a large quake was on the way, prompting the mayor's anger," Gavin Jones reports for Reuters.

Jones adds, "Giuliani, who based his forecast on concentrations of radon gas around seismically active areas, was reported to police for 'spreading alarm' and was forced to remove his findings from the Internet."

The Telegraph reports he also "posted a video on YouTube in which he said a build-up of radon gas around the seismically active area suggested a major earthquake was imminent."

I am glad Mr. (Dr.?) Giuliani was able to foresee the event, but I think the science of earthquake prediction is not yet at the point of being able to give practical timely warning. It's not his fault that his warning was considerably previous, he tried to do good.

The problem is with human nature. To most people, I think, 'imminent' means 'in the next ten minutes'. They'll evacuate buildings and hang around with their day on hold for maybe an hour or two, then the prediction is called hogwash and it's back to business as usual. Thirty days is an eternity.

So's a week. I offer as example the fact that the attack on Pearl Harbor was predicted to happen on or about November 31, and the military in Hawai'i was on full alert for several days around that time frame. By the time the attack actually came on December 7, all hands had stood down and were caught completely by surprise.

Obviously, predicting an earthquake thirty days out is useless, good intentions notwithstanding. A day in advance might be too much. Research must continue until the authorities can say with great finality, "GET OUT NOW!". Until that day...

In other words, if you are going to run in circles, scream and shout "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!", there had damn well better be pieces of it on the ground you can point to or people will think you're a quack, however correct your prediction turns out to have been later.

Alternatively, of course, the day may come when an accurate prediction will be possible several days out and we can mark our calendars. Until that day...

Just as an aside, livestock, pets, and other animals seem to be pretty good at sensing imminent earthquakes, though not good enough that dumb ol' humans can pick up on what they're saying unless they're abnormally alert. Gummint scientists, in their wisdom, deny that any such of an unscientific thing could possibly occur, even though it's been goin' on since before science. Us dumbass country f**ks have animals we can watch, but I guess city folks only have pigeons. Heh.

Since seismology and vulcanology are closely related and intertwined, whatever we do, we must not let Governor Jindal hear about earthquake research lest he deem it 'liberal pork' or 'anti-christian' or something equally ludicrous!

Repugs: effectively cornered within just Dixie

P.M. Carpenter comes up with some odd conclusions, but some of his piece is spot on:

You know the right is in big, big trouble when even David Horowitz, one of the movement's leading intellectual charlatans and classic paranoids, begins to realize that so many around him are just plain nuts.

Yeah, thinkin' everybody's crazy but you is a symptom of something. Heh.

If the GOP leaves its fantastical condition untreated -- which, it appears, it is likely to do -- then the party's prognosis is likely terminal. Perhaps in 30 years, 40 years, the general electorate will forget what the "tenets of Reaganism" inflicted on this nation and once again become seducible. But I'm skeptical that the GOP can survive in the wilderness that long; it is already effectively cornered within just Dixie.

Watch it! A rabid, red-eyed beast frothing at the mouth is at its most dangerous when cornered. I think we are seeing signs of their desperation and they're liable to do anything. Anything, even if it brings our nation down.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Ohio Man Charged With Drunk Driving On Motorized Bar Stool
However, GM has expressed interest in vehicle.

Chinese Beer Surpasses Bud Light as World’s Best-Selling
American century officially over.

The Chinese have beer as good as Bud Light? I didn't even know they had horses!

Big Bank Stress Test Results Due Shortly
Just before autopsy reports.

Cyber Spies Hack Into Systems Worldwide, Steal Everything
There is nothing left.

Ho hum, yawn...

Gregory: will no one bash Obama but me?

The Bobblespeak Translations translates yesterday's Press The Meat for us.

First, Dave Gregory interviews Fritz Henderson, replacement CEO at GM:

Gregory: look the reality is Obama is a fascist - now say it!!!

Henderson: Obama told me not to

Gregory: how can you and I work together to destroy the unions?

Henderson: see me in the green room

Gregory: people think GM cars totally suck

Henderson: that's true

Gregory: how do you win consumers back?

Henderson: two words: big fins

Gregory: you are the worst spokesman ever

Henderson: yeah I know

And later during the panel discussion:

Gregory: Bibi says the messianic crazy people should not have nukes

Kay: well Bush is out of office

Gregory: How do we handle a girl named Israel?

Gerson: Weaponization is easy - comedy is hard

Dave: I do it week after week

Gregory: Obama has a weird approach to foreigners - he listens to them instead of killing them

Gerson: fuck him

Rogers: it's almost as if after Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II we decided to elect a man without dementia or psycho-sexual hangups

Gerson: jesus Dave even I think you're in the tank for the GOP - Obama had to take on big business

Gregory: will no one bash Obama but me??

Rogers: Obama is doing the right thing

Kay: sorry dancin' dave i think Obama is right here

Gregory: [ weeps openly ]

Gregory: today we celebrate two rites of spring - the cherry blossom festival and Karl Rove and I will interpret Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps on the White House Oval - don't miss it!!

Get a tan first, Dave. Yer liable to blind someone.

More.

Cape Breton Island Celtic Music Blogging

A Celtic tune done in the Cape Breton Island style. Lovely.

The video for the single, "The Drunken Piper", featuring the vocal stylings of Cookie Rankin. From Natalie MacMaster's 1996 release, "No Boundaries".

I know I must yank my head back south of the border sometime, but this is soooo much fun...

Cookie Rankin & Natalie MacMaster ~ The Drunken Piper

Thanks to lbrankinfiles, Canada.

Sunday Crazy Frog First Lady Music Blogging

I'm on a roll today! A 'French' roll. Heh.

Mme. Sarkozy has a nice new Gibson 'Legend' guitar now, too, courtesy of Mme. Obama. Expensive and worth every dime to post-Bush international relations with our first ally.

Carla Bruni ~ L'amour

Thanks to Traumwetter, Germany.

Sunday Crazy Quebecker Really Alt.country Music Blogging, Eh?

I've been a fan of these Canuckistanian gals since I can remember. This is a very pretty song.

Kate & Anna McGarrigle ~ Petite Annonce Amoureuse

Thanks to limeyloop.

Pope, extra ribbed

Ooh! Does he come in bright colors and flavors too? Easy-opening wrappers?

Mark Morford with a column on the unconscionable statement by The Wrongly-Accused-Of-Being-Infallible Old Fart that condoms make AIDS worse. Worth a read, but I'll distill it down to this:

[...] Perhaps we should look at it differently, and use Benedict as our grand reminder that the general Rule of Divinity still holds true: the more you claim to be some sort of inviolable authority on things sacred and holy, the less you are to be trusted and the more we should all hope and pray for your urgent obsoletion. Simple enough?

Yep.

Sirota on drugs

Hmmmm. Maybe the title of this post didn't come out exactly right...

David Sirota on The War On Some Drugs in the wake of Secretary Clinton's honest and astonishing and astonishing in its honesty statement about who's partly to blame for the real Drug War in Mexico.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Americans spend about $9 billion a year on Mexican pot.

Add that to the roughly $36 billion worth of domestically produced weed, and cannabis has become one of the continent's biggest cash crops. As any mob movie illustrates, mixing such "insatiable" demand for a product with statutes outlawing said product guarantees the emergence of a violent black market — in this case, one in which Mexican drug cartels reap 62 percent of their profits from U.S. marijuana sales.

That last stat, provided by the White House drug czar, is the silver lining. Every American concerned about Mexico's security problems should be thankful that the cartels are so dependent on marijuana, and not a genuinely hazardous substance like heroin. Why? Because that means through pot legalization, we can bring the marijuana trade out of the shadows and into the safety of the regulated economy, consequently eliminating the black market the cartels rely on. And here's the best part: We can do so without fearing any more negative consequences than we already tolerate in our keg-party culture.

Though President Obama childishly laughed at a question about legalization during his recent town hall meeting, his government implicitly admits that marijuana is safer than light beer. Indeed, as federal agencies acknowledge alcohol's key role in deadly illnesses and domestic violence, their latest anti-pot fear mongering is an ad campaign insisting — I kid you not — that marijuana is dangerous because it makes people zone out on their couches and diminishes video gaming skills.

(This is your government on drugs: Cirrhosis and angry tank-topped lushes beating their wives are more acceptable risks than stoners sitting in their basements ineptly playing Halo ... any questions?).

This entirely leaves out the question of whom would you rather share the highway with - a guy blowin' a .3 who has to close both eyes to get an idea of where he's going, or a stoner who wants to sit there an extra second or two to make sure the light is really green and not just trying to fool him?

Pleae read the rest.

"...the toaster won't stop screaming at him"

Since my weekends around here are mostly for fun and a much needed break from the news of the week, join me in having some fun with El Rude-o's skewering of The Boss Hobo On The Crazy Train:

At this point, we all know that Fox "news" host Glenn Beck is like a hundred pounds of crazy shit shoved in a fifty-pound bag. You get that by watching two minutes of his show, where he throws around words like "socialist" and "fascist" without having the least understanding of what they mean. Really, it's like listening to a 911 call from a brain damaged shut-in who can't figure out the can opener. And that the toaster won't stop screaming at him.

A visit to his website yields a whole new level of bugfuckery. Watch the recent video he posted titled "Sarah Palin Bikini Video," where he chastises people for searching for cheesecake photos and videos of the conservative dream date. Beck snorts and stomps that such things don't exist (except, dear right-wing masturbators, a shot of Palin in shorts conveniently sucking a straw), twitching like the weasels in his mind just took another bite of his medulla oblongata. Seriously, if the Rude Pundit was approached by someone acting like that in a bar, he'd break a beer bottle over the fucker's head and declare that he had saved everyone's life.

I will gladly buy the Rude Pundit a replacement for that beer! He'd get poured outta the joint 'cuz so would everybody else.

Bonnie

A friend of mine says that they key to survival is "cold steel, hard cash, dry socks, and stay away from redheaded women!". Sometimes I slip up a little on that last one...

Bonnie Raitt ~ Nick Of Time

Thanks to WellExcuuuseMeee, West Haven CT. This guy has put up over 2400 music vids since February. Get some sleep, dude!

Saturday give-Emmylou-an-assist Music Blogging

This is from The Transatlantic Sessions, which I loved, and which I miss because that goddam SuddenLink megacable company took my Ovation away. Waaaah....

Mary Black ~ By The Time It Gets Dark

Thanks to dashdlux, Spain.

Adieu Mein Kleiner Gardeoffizier

Some of you will no doubt say I am некультурный and you'd be right, but I just discovered Nana Mouskouri, whom I find to have been one of the most popular singers in the western world for maybe forty years. Live and learn. The song is 'Adieu Mein Kleiner Gardeoffizier' which I think translates something like 'Time's up sailor, hit the bricks'. I don't understand much of it, but this gal is so good she could be farting the Hamburg Yellow Pages for all I care! This is one of her lighter pieces.

Thanks to nad001.

The George W. Bush Presidential Librarium

Go see. Roll your mouse over it.

If Cheney had had his way...

...this would be coming to a neighborhood near you:

Die Wehrmacht - Russland

This video's OK, but no thanks or link to a neo-Nazi.

Obama wows Europeans as Bush era is consigned to the toxic dumpster of history

The hazmat crews have barely begun on what he left behind, but at least we've started on the massive cleanup.

Reuters

The excitement generated by U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to both sides of the French-German border was a sharp contrast to the angry protests that often greeted his predecessor George W. Bush on trips to the continent.

"I wanted to tell you that your name in Hungarian means 'peach'," a girl from Heidelberg, Germany, gushed to Obama, at a townhall meeting.

Oh effin' swell. Now we got a President nicknamed 'Peachy'. Heh.

In scenes repeating his European visit last year as a presidential candidate, Obama was cheered when he arrived in Strasbourg and received a kiss from a woman in the crowd as he headed for talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Easy there, Carla...

It is sooooo much nicer to blog about stuff like this than it was to post about the Chimp's brain-deadity and total lack of courtesy and couth when he was abroad.

No more suckin' paint, kids. Or ridin' minibikes.

I guess I kinda got a theme today. Following up on the post below, here's an example of bureaucratic stupidity that has the motorcycle industry positively ablaze right now. The government does a lot of stupid things, but this one takes the cake.

By David Edwards in Cycle World, but there are thousands of articles about it. Links and video.

Your kid licked a battery terminal lately? Sucked on a Schrader valve?

Neither has Jason Horne's son Logan, but when Mr. Horne took the family's Polaris ATV into his local dealer for servicing, he was turned away, told it was now illegal for the shop to sell or work on minibikes and small all-terrain vehicles.

For that you can thank the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, enacted last fall and put into effect February 10. The law had noble intentions—to protect children from lead content in toys following the recall of millions of Chinese-made items—and was overwhelmingly passed by Congress. It imposes a tough new lead-content limit of 600 parts per million for any product intended for children under 12.

Problem is the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency charged with "protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from thousands of types of consumer products," to quote its own website, has chosen to apply the law to youth ATVs and motorcycles, effectively banning them.

"Some ATV and motorcycle parts unavoidably contain small quantities of lead," explained Paul Vitrano, VP and general counsel of the Motorcycle Industry Council. "Lead in these components is necessary, either for safety, as in the case of facilitating the machining of tire valves, critical to assuring air retention, or for functionality, such as the lead in battery terminals, which is needed to conduct electricity."

Trace amounts of lead are also found in electrical connectors, brake and clutch levers, engine cases, carburetors and frames, none of which are likely to be ingested by children. The lead strengthens the metals and resists corrosion, said Vitrano.

Financial repercussions of the ban are staggering, especially for an industry hit hard by last autumn's economic free fall — the Christmas sales period, prime time for kids' dirtbikes and quads, was the slowest in years. Now add the new lead-content rules, which as interpreted by the CPSC block the sale of up to 100,000 units. Dealernews estimates that the value of inventory now sitting in warehouses that can no longer be sold exceeds $100 million. Factor in sales, service, parts, accessories and payroll (if employees have to be laid off) and the downside could be $1 billion in lost economic value annually for the powersports industry, predicts the MIC.

There was a chance in early March that some well-placed gumption could have put all this right. The CPSC has the power to grant exclusions. The MIC petitioned for such an exclusion in this case based on existing European Union studies and analogous exemptions for lead in components of full-sized motorized vehicles.

"Our expert toxicologist says the lead-intake risk associated with riding is significantly less than the default lead levels for food and water," said Vitrano. (my em)

Those negligible amounts—in essence, not detectable, said the expert—failed to persuade the CPSC to grant exclusion. Neither did the thousands of e-mails and letters sent in by concerned enthusiasts. Instead, the commission claimed to be conscripted by guideline language disallowing exemptions if there is "any"* possibility of absorption of lead into the body of a child.

"The CPSC's narrow and literal interpretation was not helpful to our request," said Vitrano in a diplomatic understatement.

The commission's non-action throws the matter back into the legislative arena, which could be a time-intensive process given the government's many issues these days. To get the latest on the situation and to find out how best to make your voice heard on this matter, check in with the MIC's website, www.mic.org, and its "Stop the Ban" section.

Luckily, we have friends in high places. Missouri State Representative Tom Self (www.tomself.com), for instance, whose family rides and races off-road.

"The Consumer Product Safety Commission needs to take a common-sense approach to implementation of the CPSIA's lead provisions in order to avoid major disruptions to youth ATV and motorcycle enthusiasts, owners, manufacturers and the dealer network of thousands of small, independent businesses which employ tens of thousands of Americans," wrote Self in a house resolution. "While protecting children from those products that truly present a lead risk is important, there should be a waiver or exclusion for products that do not present risk to children."

That kind of pragmatic, straight thinking will take you far, Mr. Self. Maybe even all the way to national office. I'm thinking Chairman of the CPSC for starters...

*One word. One poorly chosen word out of God knows how many pages in a law, probably not even read by those who signed it into law, and the CPSC is so bureaucratically chickenshit that they feel they are required to take it literally and fly in the face of common sense, thus wrecking a fine family sport and a good percentage of a whole industry. Especially in these harsh economic times. It is not only stupid, but downright unconscionable. Besides, there's liable to be a whole generation of kids deprived of the thrill of roosting the neighbor's rose bushes. And replanting them with a sore ass. Heh.

Yes, of course we want to keep kids safe from lead poisoning, but in forty years in the motorcycle biz I've never even once seen a kid break open his bike's battery and snort the contents. Or lick the paint. I will admit to seeing them eat various parts of the bikes on their way to the ER, but that's more metaphorical than literal.

Lead is a poisonous heavy metal. It is everywhere on this earth, along with other heavy metals like uranium, and can be found in trace amounts in our bodies like every other goddam element. Anyone who has ever watched me prepare to do any kind of work would say I have an overload of lead over work ethic in my ass, but that's another story.

This law is good intentions gone awry and run amuck. Just another brick in the road to Hell.

Update:

From Jean Turner of Cycle News, April 1:

Michigan Congressman John Dingell wrote a letter to the CPSC, basically asking Acting Chairman Nancy Nord to explain what the problems are with the new law. Dingell asked a list of questions, one of which was “...Does CPSC believe that [youth motorcycles] present a risk to children for the absorption of lead?”

Nord was surprisingly supportive of the OHV industry in her response. Her letter read: “The possibility that children will suffer significant lead exposures from these classes of vehicles appears to be remote at best.” She went on to say (in an underlined sentence), “A child using an adult ATV as a substitute would face a far graver and more immediate risk than that of the possible lead exposure from the youth ATVs.”

Following are the CPSC’s list of potential solutions:
• postponing the deadline for sales (not manufacture) of products above the limits;
• lowering the age limit for children’s products;
• exempting some or all children’s products that are not kept in the house, such as bicycles and ATVs;
• giving the CPSC greater discretion to exclude products that pose a negligible risk;

So rest assured: the CPSC is listening. They understand what our industry is going through and wants to resolve this problem.

This one saddens me:

Representative Henry Waxman and Senator Barbara Boxer are the two who wrote the lead regulation of the CPSIA. Boxer can't even be troubled to respond to those who suffer in the disastrous wake of her poorly thought-out law. In fact, Malcolm Smith himself received a letter back from the California Senator thanking him for voicing his concerns about the budget crisis.

I guess Babs, who represents the state with the most motorcycles, mine, has bigger fish to fry than worrying about a little $billion$ industry. Sigh.

To his everlasting credit, Malcolm also defied the ban and continued selling kids' bikes out of his dealership. Malcolm was the star of On Any Sunday and a motorcycling legend.

There is currently a rally going on in Washington D.C. today (not an April Fool’s joke) including more than just powersports industry supporters, but members of many other industries that have been affected by the CPSIA, including makers of toys, clothing, books and bicycles.

“My favorite ones are children’s medical devices,” Hilbert said with a laugh. “There are [leg] braces for kids with Polio that have to be pulled off the market because they can’t meet the letter of the law. It’s highly ridiculous at some levels.”

Holy shit! Forget not bein' able to go dirt riding! This law is gonna have kids crawling instead of walking if something isn't done!

In fairness, it appears that the CPSC is aware that this legislation is awful as written and are aware also that something needs to be done. They are under-funded and under-staffed, which I think can be summed up with the following:

Bush administration x corporate profit x deregulation + castrating & downsizing consumer protection = plenty of Chinese lead for every child.

The well-meaning CSPIA is a hurriedly and poorly written overreaction and needs to be corrected. The snail pace of legislative action is not a help.

Forgive me for giving so much space to this, but this is a subject near and dear to my heart. I think motorcycles and all the other motor sports are the absolute finest family activities there are and a terrific way to give kids something fun and exciting to do and keep them out of trouble.

Industrial Hemp Called 'No-Brainer' Reform

One would think that Congress is the perfect place to take a 'no-brainer' but it doesn't work that way...

On The Hill

For the third time since the federal government outlawed hemp farming in the United States more than 50 years ago, a federal bill will be introduced that will remove restrictions on the cultivation of non-intoxicating industrial hemp.

The chief sponsors, Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) have circulated a dear colleague letter seeking support for the Industrial Hemp Farming Act. The bill will be identical to HR 1009 which was introduced in the 110th Congress, according to a hemp advocacy group.

"Under the current national drug control policy, industrial hemp can be imported, but it can't be grown by American farmers," says Vote Hemp's Steenstra. "The DEA has taken the Controlled Substances Act's antiquated definition of marijuana out of context and used it as an excuse to ban industrial hemp farming. The Industrial Hemp Farming Act will bring us back to more rational times when the government regulated marijuana, but told farmers they could go ahead and continue raising hemp just as they always had."

I hope this bill will go somewhere this time. It probably won't. Common Sense Be Damned should be Congress' motto.

From Vote Hemp:

Canadian Govt. Can Tell Difference Between Hemp and Marijuana, Why Can't the US?

Because the Canuckistanian government isn't near as stupid, nor is it in thrall to a puritanical mindset or the pharmaceutical and liquor lobbies. On the off chance that someone, somewhere, will be stupid enough to try and smoke enough ditchweed to get high, the sentiment seems to be, "Ya wanta get yer head, ya use our profit-generatin' dope or go to jail." Our government damn well knows the difference between rope or canvas and smokin' dope, but the tighter the rules and the more intensive the enforcement, the bigger the DEA can get and the bigger its budget and power.

Also see:

Hemp Hoe Down. Gee, that sounds like Saturday night at Fixer's house! Actually, in all seriousness, the F-Man's weapons-grade mota is best not wasted on practical applications! Heh.

Native Americans & Hemp: A call for reverse colonization. Basically, everything about growing hemp in states where it is legal on supposedly sovereign Indian land, to which the DEA's attitude is 'fuck your sovereignty, blanket ass, and the state you live in'.

Hemp as bio-fuel. Tried it. The roaches kept clogging the fuel filter...

Busy, busy ...

As you've probably noticed, I haven't been so prolific here lately. Busy at the shop, busy at home. Back in the swing of things soon.

Happy Birthday, Emmylou!

Today is Emmylou's birthday. Since ladies' ages are never discussed by gentlemen, let's just say the campfire permit for the candles on her cake is slightly easier to obtain than mine and ain't she gorgeous?

Emmylou Harris ~ High-Powered Love & I Don't Want To Talk About It Now

Thanks to elp1978.

Willful ignorance ...

As I've said before, I don't want to hear any crying from the people who invested with Bernie Madoff. Most of his investors had a pretty good inkling (except for the SEC, it seems) he was up to no good but their greed trumped their common sense. Sorry, but I ain't bailing your asses out.

Associates of convicted Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff knew he was scamming his clients but joined in anyway because of the big money they could make, a securities investigator testified in a sworn affidavit for a Connecticut court.

...

"It is my opinion ... that [the funds and their principals] were all aware that Bernard L. Madoff was engaging in illegal conduct in connection with his purported money management operations and intentionally chose to participate and support Madoff's illegal conduct in order to reap enormous illicit financial benefits," he [investigator Edward H. Seidle] stated.

...

STFU and take your lumps. I'm going to work.

Thanks to Chris for the link.

Professional whining ...

Or, We're being persecuted by the Liberals!!! Greenwald:

...

Exemplifying the deeply self-pitying theme of the entire discussion, Jonah ["The Pantload" Goldberg] continuously insisted that conservative magazines are so very, very important to the political landscape -- indispensably so -- because conservative voices are frozen out of mainstream media venues by The Liberal Media, so that poor, lonely, stigmatized conservatives can only get right-wing opinion in places like Weekly Standard and National Review. In between Jonah's petulant laments about how conservative opinion cannot be heard in The Mainstream Media, Bill Kristol talked about his New York Times column and his Washington Post column, John Podhoretz told stories about his tenure editing The New York Post Editorial Page and Charles Krauthammer's years of writing a column for Time and The New Republic, and Jonah referenced his Los Angeles Times column. None of them ever recognized the gaping disparity between those facts and their woe-is-us whining about conservative voices like theirs being shut out of The Liberal Media. So important in conservative mythology is self-victimization that they maintain it even as they themselves unwittingly provide the facts which disprove it. [my em]

...

It's amazing how quickly conservatives' memories can fade. Why, just a few short years ago, anything they said was taken as gospel by "the liberal media" but, now that 'ideological cleansing' has taken place, they can't get their views heard anywhere ... like CNN for example. Because, you know, "the best political team on television" is really nothing more than a Socialist front.

I can't believe we let these assholes run the country for 8 years.

I Love Noo Yawk!

Light blogging today. Places to go, things to see, people to do, you know how it goes, so I'll just leave ya with this. It'll make ya smile. If ya got anything in yer jibs, get rid of it.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Rush Limbaugh Leaves New York
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The Unmaking of A Marine

If you are interested in Veterans Affairs as we are, go read this book review.

If Boudreau's brutally honest, devastatingly accurate, hard-hitting memoir, Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine were read by the powers that be in Washington, D.C. and by the journalists assigned to cover both military conflicts, there is absolutely no way in hell the plight of our nation's veterans would take a backseat to the issues currently dominating the evening news coverage or the topics of conversations at dinner tables throughout the country.

And therein lies one of the central themes of Boudreau's 222-page book: the images of the war he has heroically fought have been implanted inside of his mind and are on a permanent loop.

"To say I was duped is not sufficient to lighten the load," he writes. (my em)

The post-traumatic stress of the war in Iraq will forever be a part of Boudreau's identity and it will be a lifelong battle to keep it in check. For some soldiers, post-traumatic stress is the precursor to suicide, for others it leads to a life of drug abuse, alcoholism, or crime.

Boudreau said "the smallest action or phrase from a commander can influence Marines and other soldiers not to seek help."

"The pressure to prepare ourselves quickly was intense. When the first Marine came to my office and asked to see the psychiatrist about some troubling issues from our time in Iraq, I was sympathetic. I said, "No problem." When another half dozen or so Marines approached me with the same request, I was only somewhat concerned."

"But when all of them and several more returned from their appointments with recommendations for discharge, I'll admit I was alarmed. Suddenly I was not as concerned about their mental health as I was about my company's troop strength."

Boudreau said the treatment of post-traumatic stress is antithetical to the mantra of "Mission Accomplished."

"The mission will always supersede treatment," Boudreau said. "And because of that the treatment will always be dubious."

"And all the talk from bureaucrats about putting an end to multiple deployments, which has been blamed on the skyrocketing cases of post-traumatic stress and suicides, is inconceivable," Boudreau said.

"I've heard the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff say 'we have to change this ethic,'" Boudreau said. "But it's not going to happen. Why? Because the military cannot afford a 20 percent reduction in its force."

There are hundreds of thousands of known PTSD and an untold much larger number that are as yet undiagnosed or have not surfaced yet. This is a problem that will be with us until the last Veteran of Bush's Dual Clusterfuck dies eighty years from now. Or depending on how long the Iraq and Afghanistan wars continue, 150 years from now. We had better do some serious thinking as a nation about how to deal with it in a compassionate and effective manner or we are going to pay a tremendous human and societal price for Bush's criminal imperial misadventures. The cost of his entire administration in actual money so far, both current and the debt passed to two or three generations yet to come, will be as nothing compared to the cost of not doing the right thing for these Veterans.

Crossposted at The American Patriot Institute.

How Close the Bush Bullet

I was reading a piece at The Public Record about Yoo and Bybee's torture and other legal memos, which basically left me with the impression that Bush and Cheney are going to hang these fuckers out to dry - "But my lawyer said it was OK! It's all his fault!"

Bush officials insist that they were acting under the guidance of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises Presidents on the scope of their constitutional powers. For the OPR report to conclude that Yoo, Bybee and Bradbury violated their professional duties as lawyers and, in effect, gave Bush pre-cooked legal opinions to do what he already wanted to do would shatter that line of defense.

Shatter away. Those whores belong in the juzgado with their pimps. The term 'jailhouse lawyer' may take on a whole new meaning when the jailhouse is fulla Bush & Cheney lawyers.

In the juzgado vein, there's a coupla short paragraphs at the end about Judge Baltasar Garzon, my new hero.

That article was basically about high-power lawyers slingin' bullshit boilerplate on request and perhaps beginning to regret it, but it led me to an article that I had missed earlier in the month, a 'recommended read' by Robert Parry.

Earlier this decade when some of us warned that George W. Bush was behaving more like an incipient dictator than the leader of a constitutional republic, we were dismissed as alarmists, left-wingers, traitors and a host of less printable epithets.

I have been called many things, but I am positively proud to claim the title of anti-Bush regime 'less printable epithet'!

The only real problem with being called names by the Repugs is that they're basically cowards and won't do it to your face where you can, er, counsel them on the error of their ways, perhaps with a 'moment of prayer', where they do all the prayin' that you'll stop counsellin' 'em. Heh. But I digress...

According to his administration's secret legal memos released Monday, Bush could waive all meaningful constitutional rights of citizens, including the First Amendment’s protections on free speech and a free press.

What was particularly stunning about Yoo’s reference to waiving the First Amendment – a pillar of American democracy – was his cavalier attitude. He tossed the paragraph into a memo focused on stripping Americans of their Fourth Amendment “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

I think the legal term for that sort of inclusion is 'the fine print', like in a used-car 'guarantee'. You'll never see it until the damn thing breaks and you want it fixed and they call your attention to the part that says 'fuck you'.

The significance of Yoo’s throwaway paragraph about throwing away the First Amendment is that it suggests that the Bush administration intended as early as October 2001 to act against journalists and citizens who were viewed as undermining Bush’s “war on terror” through public comments or disclosures.

So, a seemingly incongruous reference to overriding the First Amendment – in a memo centered on overriding the Fourth Amendment – could be explained by the desire of White House officials to have some legal cover for actions aimed at journalists who were exposing secrets or whose reporting might weaken the national resolve behind Bush’s actions.

A free press is not in the best interests of the vast right-wing conspiracy against this country. They've actually pretty much eliminated it anyway by buying it up. Freedom of the press is for those who own a press. Freedom of speech is damn hard to kill, though, thank you Founding Fathers, but they keep trying.

Here's the last line and the money shot:

In other words, Bush’s assault on America’s constitutional Republic may have been more aggressive than many of us imagined. It was a bullet that came close to the heart of a dream dating back to 1776.

We may never know exactly how close we came. Bush doesn't have the brain power to come up with any of this himself, but Cheney sure as shit does. That the dictatorship did not get as far as it might have may be because widespread dissent, sadly missing for most of The Bush Years, did not get dangerous enough for them to implement it, but given the distancing of Bush from Cheney during the last coupla years of his fake presidency, it may have dawned on Bush in that dim bulb of a brain of his that The Dick had led him down the garden path to being The Worst President We've Ever Had, destroyed his chances at any kind of good historical legacy, realized that he, George W. Favored Son, was in fact the titular president who would be the one who was going to, is going to, catch all the heat, and may in fact have been installed as a patsy simply to take the rap for the (now, luckily) failed neocon agenda in the first place, further realized that the greatness he had been promised for going along was a scam on him from the gate, and simply put his foot down.

Even after the truth about Cheney and the neocons really, really comes out, and it will, and by that I mean that the general public accepts and understands what they tried to do, Bush's name was on the door and he is most certainly to blame for the disaster of his eight years, but it pains me to think that the puppet Bush may be due partial credit for not letting Cheney and the neocons complete their coup d'etat.

Two things happened in that post:

1) My stream-of-unconsciousness 'style' may have spewed out the longest, most convoluted sentence of my career, and

2) I eased my metaphorical foot off Bush's metaphorical neck for a second. I must be going soft in my old age. Or maybe after 4½ years of blogging against him it was just time to change my socks.

Change ...

I can believe in. It's nice to have a majority but will the Rethugs try to filibuster when it gets to the Senate?

Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) held a conference call this morning to discuss comprehensive energy legislation. This debate is starting because Markey, who chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Climate Change, joined with House Energy, and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman released a draft of their legislation titled, "The American Clean Energy and Security Act"

Pelosi stated that this legislation would put us on "a new path." She offered praise for President Obama, who put an emphasis in his budget on energy. She also said passing the budget this week is the first step in this process. Pelosi maintains the new energy bill addresses a national security issue, economic issue, environmental health issue and a "moral issue to preserve god’s creation." The Speaker's statement and links to the draft documents can be found on her blog, The Gavel.

...

After 8 years of an energy policy that was considered a National Secret except to those in the room (Cheney and oil company execs) when it was crafted, it's nice to see our elected reps look to the future instead of to short-term profit for their cronies. You can bet Big Oil is gonna put a full court press on the pols in their pocket to keep this from seeing the light of day.

Late for work ...