Voting.Yes,I know,this isn't a glamorous story,why it's even tin foil hatty to some people.But here's the thing:
There shouldn't even BE a question in regards to the process we use to vote.And if there is,anywhere in this country,a question as to the integrity of the voting(and voter registration)process,people of all political stripes should be demanding answers and and there should be transparency.This is not hard to do,and there are plenty of people willing to volunteer to help out.This isn't a partisan issue,it's about us,all of us,being good citizens.And if you say you love America,well hell,what's more American than the premise that every adult person who wants to can vote?
Now,read this and then go watch this.(this last link is an old flash video,but it's a nice little mini crash course.It leaves out stuff like the "Brooks Brothers riots" and other assorted dirty tricks in FL,but again,ANY question of what's going on with our voting shouldn't even BE.Anyone who refuses to support that concept is suspect,and certainly doesn't have our best interests at heart.)
Big Buisnesses can NOT be trusted to do the right thing unless they are closely watched.They just won't.They prove it over and over and over daily.They are not loyal to Country first,it's Money they serve.Being loyal to one's Company and Party above all else is NOT American.Trusting technology and those who buy and sell it to run our voting system is a bad idea.We need to go backwards,to the way it was before this madness took over.Until we can find more streamlined ways that don't involve big bidness.Americans are supposed to be creative and innovative,this isn't rocket science.
I don't know folks,I think our wisdom as human beings hasn't kept up very well with our technological advances.There's the NSA thing, connections to monitoring what's left of our so called"journalists"(which would explain alot,frankly.I think people are being blackmailed with stuff like their porn habits,evidence of affairs,maybe even medical or mental health info),which probably is also going to lead to stuff coming out about spying on political rivals(same blackmail theory applies there,and it does make sense when you pair that up with certain people's behavior),and then you add in the voting thing,I gotta wonder.Is all this stuff that's supposed to make life easier really a curse,or even leading to our own downfall in some ways?
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
About fucking time
LUXEMBOURG (AP) -- Armed with key concessions from Germany, an 11-nation commission convened Tuesday to finalize arrangements to open a vast archive documenting the death, enslavement or oppression of 17 million Jews, Roma and others deemed undesirable to the Nazi regime.
The move to unlock the storehouse of some 50 million files in the German town of Bad Arolsen comes under pressure from the dying generation of Holocaust survivors and victims' families who fear their histories will be lost forever unless the rules are changed for accessing the files.
...
Now, all of you Holocaust deniers can shove it up your collective ass. I'm German. I know how anal we can get with record keeping. This should prove once and for all how many died; where, when, and how. I'm tired of these people saying it didn't happen. I've been to the camps, and it sickens me that my people could do something so horrible (lately, I believe Americans are just as capable), but the record has to be available for all to see, hopefully preventing this from ever happening again.
Great thanks to memeorandum for the link.
Liquid Alert:
Put down or swallow the coffee, juice, milk, bourbon, whatever, before you read Athenae's live blog of the Chimp's speech.
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Catch and Release? CATCH AND RELEASE? THEY ARE NOT FUCKING 7 INCH PERCH YOU FUCKWIT!
...
So...
Now that we know the government is spying on the news media, what are these 'news organizations' gonna do? Personally, were it me at the head of MSNBC or CNN, I'd devote every fucking minute of programming to this story, bashing the American people over the head with it until they get it. Do you think anyone over at CNN ever read this?
Just in case you've forgotten, you're the people who have the voice. We can yell all we want, but you've helped the Rethugs frame us as 'the angry Left' and most take us with a grain of salt. It's time for you to stand up because guess what? The way it looks, they're gonna come for you before they come for me. They know where to find you. To get me, they're gonna suffer casualties. Think about it, Wolf, Timmy, Lou. There's a target on your backs and you don't even know it. Time to fight back or you'll be silenced permanently. I thought you guys were supposed to be smarter than I am?
When they came for they came for the mentally retarded, I did not speak up.
When they came for the gypsies, I did not speak up.
When they came for the artists, the writers, singers,I did not speak up.
When they came for me, there was no one to speak for me!
Just in case you've forgotten, you're the people who have the voice. We can yell all we want, but you've helped the Rethugs frame us as 'the angry Left' and most take us with a grain of salt. It's time for you to stand up because guess what? The way it looks, they're gonna come for you before they come for me. They know where to find you. To get me, they're gonna suffer casualties. Think about it, Wolf, Timmy, Lou. There's a target on your backs and you don't even know it. Time to fight back or you'll be silenced permanently. I thought you guys were supposed to be smarter than I am?
Lamont-um
Later, Holy Joe:
Looks like my good neighbors to the north are opening their eyes.
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So I was extremely heartened to see that Carolyn Treiss, head of Connecticut NARAL, has joined the Connecticut Choice Voice organization that is endorsing Ned Lamont. A lot of women in the Connecticut pro-choice community were mortified when they discovered that Nancy Keenan and national NARAL had been telling their membership to thank Holy Joe for blackening their eye (information that was largely promulgated by the blogs) and as a result Connecticut Choice Voice was formed. It's really wonderful to see Carolyn Treiss getting out in front of this and showing the kind of leadership in her state that is going to be necessary if groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood are ever to be trusted again to be the guardians of choice once again.
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Looks like my good neighbors to the north are opening their eyes.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Dixie Chicks: Not Ready to Make Nice
The Dixie Chicks on 60 Minutes. No quotes - I'm lazy. Just go read.
President Gore on SNL
I was gonna link ya to this hilarious video of Al Gore earlier in the day but YouTube took it down. It's ba-ack! If it ain't right on top, scroll down 'til ya get to it.
Thanks to iFlipFlop.
Up yours, Amerikanskiy
I was reading the dead tree version of The Finacial Times when I came across this. When we sanction rendition to commit torture, incarcerate others without charge or cause, and look the other way when our people commit abuses, you can't go lecturing the Russians about theirs.
From Mr Dmitry Peskov.
Sir, In your editorial "The dangers of crying 'Comrade Wolf" (May 11), you write that President Vladimir Putin "worryingly" used his annual address to the Federal Assembly to jab back at Dick Cheney's hawkish remarks in a way that bodes ill for co-operative results at the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg in July. Gone, you say, is the language of partnership.
You claim that Mr Putin's "hawkish foreign policy rhetoric" will make compromises with the US less likely.
In fact, the President's remarks were an extremely restrained retort to a speech by Mr Cheney that was described by many commentators as the most ferocious and unreasonable attack on Russia since the cold war. It should surely be welcomed that the Russian president did not rise to the bait and trigger a spiral of pointless mutual recriminations.
You rightly state that on the major issues of the day Russia and the US are not diametrically opposed. Let us build on the consensus that exists, and aim for a successful G8 summit in July.
Dmitry Peskov,
Deputy Spokesman to the President
of the Russian Federation,
Kremlin, Moscow [my em]
So...
I thought we're only monitoring 'terrists'?
Time to storm the gates.
ABC's Brian Ross and Richard Esposito Report:
A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.
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Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.
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Time to storm the gates.
Damn lies...
Ol' Froth points up a factoid that seemed to get muddled in all the other controversy:
When news first broke that the NSA was listening in on calls, Bush said it was being done with warrants.
The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
That was a lie.
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We don't need...
Dems like this:
It's time to quit playing politics and start practicing leadership. The Repukes have been in power for five years. They own everything fucked up about America. This is our best opportunity in a long time and you don't want it? I swear, if you guys fuck this up, there's gonna be a viable Third Party by the time 2008 rolls around, even if I have to go bankrupt financing it. It's getting to the point where I'm gonna run for President, or at least a Senate seat, skeletons in the closet be damned.
If these assholes don't want to be leaders, what the fuck are they doing in Washington anyway? It's time to stand up and do the right thing, because if I have anything to say on the subject, there will be term limits for Congress sooner rather than later. Incumbency has ruined the lot of you. It isn't a game, morons. People are dying and being ruined and you guys sit back, ruminating about the safest way to play it. Fuck you all, I've had it with the lot of you. Get off the pot and do something before we decide to do it for you.
Leading Democrats tell the New York Times that it would be better if the party doesn't win in the fall --- and if it has the sad misfortune to do so, it would be better off not holding any investigations into the Bush administration.
And if, somehow, the party does unfortunately win and "the loud left" insists that the party holds Bush responsible for his misdeeds against the wishes of these wise men, we already know Democrats will be like the Republicans in 1996 who lost seats because they shut down the government and like Republicans in 1998 because they impeached Bill Clinton. (Lord knows the Republicans have suffered in the wilderness ever since then.)
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This is why the [Democratic] establishment is becoming irrelevant. It isn't a game to us hicks out here in America. These are our lives these people are talking about.
It's time to quit playing politics and start practicing leadership. The Repukes have been in power for five years. They own everything fucked up about America. This is our best opportunity in a long time and you don't want it? I swear, if you guys fuck this up, there's gonna be a viable Third Party by the time 2008 rolls around, even if I have to go bankrupt financing it. It's getting to the point where I'm gonna run for President, or at least a Senate seat, skeletons in the closet be damned.
If these assholes don't want to be leaders, what the fuck are they doing in Washington anyway? It's time to stand up and do the right thing, because if I have anything to say on the subject, there will be term limits for Congress sooner rather than later. Incumbency has ruined the lot of you. It isn't a game, morons. People are dying and being ruined and you guys sit back, ruminating about the safest way to play it. Fuck you all, I've had it with the lot of you. Get off the pot and do something before we decide to do it for you.
Ansel Adams Manzanar Collection
This is a cleanup. Last night when I did my Manzanar post I was very tired and somehow I forgot to put in a premier collection of photos of the camp in its heyday by California hero, Ansel Adams.
Go here for the overview and then scroll down and/or click "Collection Highlights" and go from there. Those photos are a short intro. For more, go here, click either link, scroll down to 'subjects' and have at it. It's a little screwy, I know, but that's the Library of Congress for ya.
I would have been remiss not to do this, but that oughta hold my "Injustice Jones" at bay for a while. Maybe.
Go here for the overview and then scroll down and/or click "Collection Highlights" and go from there. Those photos are a short intro. For more, go here, click either link, scroll down to 'subjects' and have at it. It's a little screwy, I know, but that's the Library of Congress for ya.
I would have been remiss not to do this, but that oughta hold my "Injustice Jones" at bay for a while. Maybe.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Shorter Laura
On Little George:
We're liberating the women of the world so American women can stay home, get pregnant, and spit out rugrats until their husbands lose interest. And then they become librarians.
We're liberating the women of the world so American women can stay home, get pregnant, and spit out rugrats until their husbands lose interest. And then they become librarians.
Frank Rich
...
The N.S.A. eavesdropping exposed in December by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of The Times is another American debacle. Hoping to suggest otherwise and cast the paper as treasonous, Dick Cheney immediately claimed that the program had saved "thousands of lives." The White House's journalistic mouthpiece, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, wrote that the Times expose "may have ruined one of our most effective anti-Al Qaeda surveillance programs."
Surely they jest. If this is one of our "most effective" programs, we're in worse trouble than we thought. Our enemy is smart enough to figure out on its own that its phone calls are monitored 24/7, since even under existing law the government can eavesdrop for 72 hours before seeking a warrant (which is almost always granted). As The Times subsequently reported, the N.S.A. program was worse than ineffective; it was counterproductive. Its gusher of data wasted F.B.I. time and manpower on wild-goose chases and minor leads while uncovering no new active Qaeda plots in the United States. Like the N.S.A. database on 200 million American phone customers that was described last week by USA Today, this program may have more to do with monitoring "traitors" like reporters and leakers than with tracking terrorists. [my ems]
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Seth has it all.
Happy Mother's Day
All the best to all the moms out there.
Update:
My mom is gone 10 years this July and I'm thinking about her this morning saying, "Thank God she wasn't alive to see what the Chimp has done to this country." She would have been sent to Gitmo by now. To see similarities between her beloved adopted nation and the Germany she left behind after the war, she would have started a revolutionary cell. I swear, my mom was a tough old broad and she wouldn't take shit from anybody. One of the things she loved the most about America were the freedoms and to see what the Chimp has taken from us would have made her fighting mad. I still love ya, ma, and I hope I have enough of your fire to do what I have to if the time comes.
Pic (click to embiggen) thanks to Sumo.
Update:
My mom is gone 10 years this July and I'm thinking about her this morning saying, "Thank God she wasn't alive to see what the Chimp has done to this country." She would have been sent to Gitmo by now. To see similarities between her beloved adopted nation and the Germany she left behind after the war, she would have started a revolutionary cell. I swear, my mom was a tough old broad and she wouldn't take shit from anybody. One of the things she loved the most about America were the freedoms and to see what the Chimp has taken from us would have made her fighting mad. I still love ya, ma, and I hope I have enough of your fire to do what I have to if the time comes.
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