Thursday January 30, 2003
If ever there was a reason to not use IE, this is it. I already know of a number of people who have been affected by this "toolbar".
Use Mozilla.
It appears that Bush's daddy was "hurt" by the words of the leader of the Episcopalian church, to which the ex-President belongs. What exactly was said by Bishop Frank T. Griswold 3rd that upset H.W. Bush so?
"Quite apart from the bombs we drop, words are weapons, and we have used our language so unwisely, so intemperately, so thoughtlessly that I am not surprised we are hated and loathed everywhere I go," the bishop said, adding, "I'd like to be able to go somewhere in the world and not have to apologize for being from the United States."
Advertisers rushing away from Limbaugh show? at CBS Marketwatch. Link followed from Eschaton.
Wednesday January 29, 2003
Go read the interview with Kurt Vonnegut at the In These Times website. Now.
I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened, though, is that it has been taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d’etat imaginable. And those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities..."
We shouldn't forget that Bush's push towards war in Iraq might actually be the catalyst that brings about a chemical or biological weapons attack against us.
That's the CIA's assessment, folks.
Tuesday January 28, 2003
I'd like to share with you the text of an ad that I read in the Wall Street Journal yesterday (WSJ, p. A4, January 27th, 2003). The ad was from FOX News. The text is reproduced below.
CNN - Trouble with the truth?STATEMENT:
"We have a more affluent audience than any other network..."
--CNN, Multichannel News 1/17/03FACT:
Both Fox News Channel and CNBC have a more affluent audience than CNN. *Trust in news is everything
America trusts us.
That's why they choose us.
You may have noticed the little asterisk. It was easy to overlook. But it leads to this text at the bottom of the ad:
*Source: Median Household Income based on FNC analysis of Nielsen Media Research data, PNF, 3Q02 (7/1/02-9/29/02), Total Day (M-Su 6a-6a). Subject to qualifications which will be made available upon request.
Not only does their ad have the qualification that it is based on the results of one quarter from last year, but it is also subject to further, unrevealed qualifications.
What is there to trust about this ad? Can we trust that the ad would be truthful if the unmentioned qualifications weren't accounted for? Is it possible that the qualifications so restrict the Neilsen sample base as to be absurdly and obviously biased in favor of Fox?
Yet again we see another right-wing organization that can't seem to win on the facts and has to instead resort to selective interpretation.
I'm reminded of a snippet of talk that I heard on the Rush Limbaugh show years ago. Rush was going on about a study in California that showed that buses were more polluting than cars. For a few minutes he rambled, stating that public transportation was yet another liberal canard, that liberals were trying to scare everyday Americans into believing the lie that their cars are horrible for the environment. After his rant, something interesting came out of his mouth. He read the statistics again, but this time the words that came out of his mouth were "trucks and buses", not just "buses," and his ruse was made plain.
The right-wing in our country has made this behavior commonplace. It will be refreshing if someday they can reference information in such a way that could allow one to believe that they have even a modicum of literacy.
Monday January 27, 2003
Evan of Blogger.com fame is using Mozilla "more and more":
"A sigh of relief. It's interesting, using Mozilla more and more, as I have been, to notice the aversion I had built up to visiting certain sites because of pop-ups. I hadn't even consciously noted it, but I pause before clicking on links to sites that have them. And then I remember, oh I'm using Mozilla, it's safe to go there. Nice."
My dad sent me a link to this story today: Man Beating Dog With Gun Shoots Himself and this comment: "...the dog is Iraq..."
Here's the story in its entirety:
WINCHESTER, Va. - A man trying to beat his dog to death with a gun was fatally wounded when it apparently went off accidentally, police said.Raymond Poore Jr., 43, called his wife at work Thursday and told her that their dog had bitten him and he intended to kill the animal, police Capt. David Sobonya said.
The wife came home about 6 p.m. and found her husband unconscious, with a number of dog bites and scratches. Emergency medical personnel discovered that Poore had been shot. He was pronounced dead at Winchester Medical Center.
Sobonya said Poore must have beaten the 30-pound shar-pei with the gun that went off. He said the stock of the weapon, a combination rifle and shotgun, was broken and there appeared to be blood and dog hair on it.
The dog was in the custody of an animal control officer. Sobonya had no detail on how badly it was injured.
Did you hear about the anti-war protest in Pittsburgh yesterday, where thousands of people marched in the snow to protest the upcoming Iraq war?
Neither had I.
Saturday January 25, 2003
Here's more on that villain Rumsfeld and his feelings for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You may recall the short piece in my blog the other day where I quoted CapitolHillBlue.com:
An angry Rumsfeld, who backs Bush without question, is said to have told the Joint Chiefs to get in line or find other jobs. Bush is also said to be “extremely angry” at what he perceives as growing Pentagon opposition to his role as Commander in Chief.
In today's Washington Times we have a leaked memo in which Rumsfeld is critical of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
"It is just a lot of people spinning their wheels, doing things we probably have to edit and improve," Mr. Rumsfeld states in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.
Apparently the view from above is that all this bureaucracy is just getting in the way. But, according to the same article:
Another Pentagon worker said the Joint Staff is required by law or regulation to produce periodic reports on a number of issues, such as personnel, force structure, roles and missions, and pay and benefits. Also, Congress' four committees that deal with military matters also require reports and certifications, some of which must be done by the Joint Chiefs.
And at the same time Mr. Rumsfeld complains about the uselessness and redundancy of the Joint Chiefs, it turns out that he's also paralyzed them under the weight of memos demanding position papers on various subjects:
Mr. Rumsfeld, a former Navy pilot and prominent corporate official, often gets things done by issuing a stream of memos — dubbed "snowflakes."The Times reported last year that morale has sunk in the Pentagon's policy shop under the weight of scores of "snowflakes" demanding various position papers.
It's starting to fit in with the default behavior of the administration: if you don't like something, make it worse until there's a case for changing it. If you want to go to war with Iraq, just send enough troops over there until it gets to the point that returning them home would look cowardly. If you don't like the government, just run up deficits until it's impossible to provide the services that the American people depend on. If you don't like the Joint Chiefs, bury them under the weight of 1000 memos, and then start shutting them out by saying that they're just doing redundant work.
This passive-agressive behavior belies the idea that the Bush administration is a populist, forward-looking cadre of compassionate conservatives who are reflecting the true feelings of the American people. They're swimming against the tide of history, and they're doing their best to change the course of the moon without anyone knowing.
Here's a song (at bartcop) that summarizes my feelings about our friend Rush Limbaugh.
Friday January 24, 2003
GOP More Interested in Clinton's Genitalia than 9-11. To the tune of $59 million.
Thursday January 23, 2003
The die's been cast. And it came up WAR, folks.
Joe Conason has a breakdown of the absolutely pathetic case for war given by Condoleeza Rice in today's NYTimes. From Joe:
Rice doesn't bother with a justification for war, but she does her best to frighten readers with those empty missiles. What she says is worthy of careful parsing: "Last week's findings by inspectors of 12 chemical warheads not included in Iraq's declaration was particularly troubling." As noted here earlier, the discovery of those rusting shells by the inspectors proved that UNMOVIC is doing its job well -- and that if Saddam Hussein is concealing proscribed weapons, the inspectors will eventually find them."In the past, Iraq has filled this type of warhead with sarin -- a deadly nerve agent used by Japanese terrorists in 1995 to kill 12 Tokyo subway passengers and sicken thousands of others." Here she implies that finding empty warheads proves the existence of poison gas -- and gets to throw in a gratuitous reference to "terrorists" as well. Does she think Saddam has been working with Aum Shinrikyo?
Actually, Rice cites another truly damnable provocation: "Iraq's declaration even resorted to unabashed plagiarism, with lengthy passages of United Nations reports copied word-for-word (or edited to remove any criticism of Iraq) and presented as original text." Now that made me wonder: Did the former provost call in a missile strike on student dorms when someone copied a paper at Stanford?
We're going to war because the Bush administration needs to go to war. We can speculate about their exact reasons, but we'll never know. But it's easy to see that 1) they're not concerned about creating legitimate excuses, 2) they're not concerned with anyone's opinion, 3) they don't give a rat's ass about the UN, and 4) they can't wait to start.
Thinking about their audacity seems to momentarily paralyze my brain, and I sit dumbfounded at the keyboard, the image of George W. Bush, our face to the world, frozen in time: his face cocked in idiotic grimace, body hunched over the podium, hands gripping it with the surety that can only come from years of practice at not spilling your drink when you've had five too many.
"To war!" they exclaimed, clinking their glasses in delight.
To war.
CBS News has an interesting article on Janet Rehnquist and her behavior as Inspector General of Health and Human Services
There have been about 20 major staff changes since Rehnquist came aboard. All six of her deputies have resigned or been forced out. Many of them spoke to CBS News, but said they felt too intimidated to appear on camera.
Pair that with this recent story from Capitol Hill Blue:
An angry Rumsfeld, who backs Bush without question, is said to have told the Joint Chiefs to get in line or find other jobs. Bush is also said to be “extremely angry” at what he perceives as growing Pentagon opposition to his role as Commander in Chief.
“The President considers this nation to be at war,” a White House source says,” and, as such, considers any opposition to his policies to be no less than an act of treason.”
It seems that just as the Bush administration has been strongarming the American people with their bellicose rhetoric, misrepresentations and outright lies, they've also been strongarming government officials as well. Calling treasonous people who hold differing opinions of the President's war push -- this is the behavior of a President who doesn't have the truth on his side. Sadly, the American people aren't aware of the increasing infighting between the Pentagon and White House. And as long as they can be kept in the dark, the administration will continue as if everyone is in agreement.
With the ratcheting up of the rhetoric over the past few days, war with Iraq seems ever more likely. But the administration is already at war with the truth.
How much does America know about 9/11 and the Iraq war that's developing? Ask Gene Lyons:
The most remarkable thing about the Knight-Ridder poll, however, was how little the public actually knew about Iraq despite months of White House drum-beating . “As far as you know,” pollsters asked “how many of the September 11th terrorist hijackers were Iraqi citizens, most of them, some of them, just one, or none?” Here’s what they said:Most: 21%
Some: 23%
Just one: 6%
None: 17%
Don’t know: 33%The correct answer, of course, is that there were no Iraqis involved in the 9/11 attacks—not one. Most were from our wonderful ally, Saudi Arabia. How any sentient American could fail to know that is a mystery. I’m confident more could identify Jennifer Anniston’s husband or the Oakland Raiders quarterback.
Another question: “Do you think Iraq and Al Queda—Osama bin Laden's organization—are allied and working together to plan new acts of terrorism, or not?”
This calls for an opinion, hence there’s no sure answer. It’s nevertheless striking that 65 percent believe that Saddam and Osama are, as the movie cowboys Junior impersonates would say, in cahoots. Despite the CIA ’s best efforts, however, there’s no evidence of an Arab popular front. To bin Laden, Saddam’s the worst kind of heretic. Odious as they are, the two represent totally different world views.
“Those polled who showed themselves to be most knowledgeable about the Iraq situation,” noted Knight-Ridder’s Martin Merzer “are significantly less likely to support military action, either to remove Hussein from power or to disarm Iraq.”...
What this means politically is that far from nurturing dreams of empire like the perfervid ideologues around President Junior, Americans mostly just want to graze Wal-Mart in peace. It doesn’t appear to have registered that if the White House geniuses really thought Saddam capable of attacking with “weapons of mass destruction,” the well-publicized U.S. troop buildup in Kuwait offers the fattest target since Pearl Harbor.
The sad fact is that the Bush administration is currently doing so much to dismantle our government from within that I think there are few Americans who would believe it if they knew. From deficits projected out for the next 10 years, to the weakening of the Clean Air Act, to the stacking of the judicial system with right-wing nutcases like Charles Pickering and Priscilla Owen to the "wartime" erosion of civil rights, it's hard for people who are aware of it all to actually believe it.
Wednesday January 22, 2003
I added two blogs to my blogroll today.
The first is Pennsylvania Gazette, Timothy R. Gray's weblog, and Sassafrass, by Kristin Anderson. Both are well worth your time, so check them out!
Tuesday January 21, 2003
As you may be aware, I refuse to support Salon.com financially, as they give aid and comfort to the likes of David Horowitz and Andrew Sullivan. However, I got an interesting bit of information from the "teaser" portion of the article on the San Francisco protests:
As always, the exact size of the protest was a subject of dispute. In one of those absurd estimates that give credence to left-wing paranoia theories that local authorities are taking their marching orders from Attorney General Ashcroft, police estimated the size of the march at 55,000. I'm no professional crowd estimator, but I've been to plenty of games at Candlestick Park (football capacity: 60,000) and the idea that a sellout crowd there would completely fill four-lane Market Street all the way from the Ferry Building, on the Bay, to the Civic Center, about two miles away, is patently ridiculous. Organizers claimed the real figure was closer to 200,000. A veteran San Francisco policeman said it was the largest march he had witnessed in two decades.
For those of you who know San Francisco (I lived there for a time before it turned into a bobo ghetto), I imagine you would look at that description of the volume of people and say something akin to "Holy shit."
We had to wait days to hear this? From an off-the-mainstream news source? Some would say that this is yet another example of the American press actively downplaying the size of the crowds in order to bolster this pathetic administration.
From Salon, telecommunications lobbying and conflicts of interest in the Bush administration:
"The Bush administration's point person for telecommunications policy allowed wireless phone company lobbyists to help pay for a private reception at her home, and then 10 days later urged a policy change that benefited their industry, according to documents and interviews."Assistant Commerce Secretary Nancy Victory said she regards the lobbyists as personal friends, and cleared the arrangement in advance with her department's ethics office. She did not report the October 2001 party as a gift on her government ethics disclosure form.
"My friends paid for this party out of their personal money," Victory said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Victory added she believed it was "ridiculous" to draw a connection between the party and her letter 10 days later to the Federal Communications Commission urging an immediate end to a decade-old restriction on wireless spectrum.
Victory continued (or maybe I just imagined it), "Just because I allowed them to penetrate me anally doesn't mean that we are in bed together figuratively!" She then proceeded to set up an another appointment with a "friend" for a small "party" later that afternoon.
Monday January 20, 2003
Here are two pictures from the San Francisco protest, which I'm shamelessly linking to from Chateau Bizarre:
This second one is great, with a blowup of the original logo for John Poindexter's Information Awareness Office:
Sunday January 19, 2003
Hundreds of thousands marched yesterday in anti-war protests around the world. And they finally got some coverage. But I think the CNN "unscientific" poll has it right -- the people in charge of pressing for this war have absolutely no interest in listening to the people. 77% said they didn't believe the protests would have an effect.
Jonah Goldberg, appearing on CNN's Late Edition With Almost-At-War-Just-Hold-Out-A-Little-Longer Wolf Blitzer, stated that the crowd was a bunch of "freaks and nutcases." At the same time, video footage of people from the march was playing, with shots of average looking middle-Americans dressed warmly with their children by their side. But that didn't matter, because as we all know the Republicans live by the incantation (are they all Tony Robbins adepts, perchance?), and the truth is neither a building block nor an impediment to their message. They repeat slogans regardless of their veracity, in hopes that by repetition the truth will rush into their statements like the spirit takes over a possessed dancer in a voodoo ritual. As long as they're not killing tiny animals to further their twisted goals, I can let it go, I suppose. Oh, I forgot about Bill Frist. Sorry.
I've been wondering what a populace can do when the government no longer has an interest in hearing its voice. A woman speaking at the rally yesterday (I watched a bit on CSPAN) said (I'm paraphrasing): "The people up there [at the Capitol] have no interest in hearing your voices. What can you do? You can make it impossible for them to govern. Make the country ungovernable by warmongers."
But how? They had no answers. Neither do I.
Saturday January 18, 2003
My blog has been changed to use MovableType. If you're looking for an easy blogging system to set up and use, I suggest Blogger. If you're looking for a blog with more extensive capabilities, MovableType might interest you. And if you have a friend who goes to the trouble to set the app up for you, it makes it even better! Thanks kerz!
The biggest change you'll notice is the addition of a comments link under new entries. We'll see how it goes - I may keep them. Let me know what you think.
I tried to drum up a few words to say about Mickey Kaus, but he's not worth it.
Joe Conason points out that the most unfair system in college admissions is the one that disproportionally favors the children of alumni, regardless of their test scores. You know, the one that got George W. into Yale.
Thursday January 16, 2003
I love seeing that great, crazy people can be found everywhere. And I hate seeing people like this treated as common criminals.
Wednesday January 15, 2003
MediaWhoresOnline reports the interesting news about Bush's latest poll numbers. If his approval rating drop wasn't bad enough, his re-elect percentage from the same poll now stands at 36%, with 32% definitely voting against.
It makes one wonder what the administration has planned to get its numbers up in time for the election. Quick and dirty war, anyone?
There's an interesting piece today by John LeCarré at the Times Online, titled "The United States of America has gone mad."
Tuesday January 14, 2003
Right on time, that sniveling sycophant Paul Festa arrives with yet another Mozilla-bashing article.
Paul has been beaten up by us so many times for his biased reporting that I think he has a personal vendetta against the Mozilla project.
Bring it on, Paul, you miserable half-wit. I noticed that you couldn't get half of your sources to go on the record with you, and instead resorted to quoting from their blogs. That's because no one in the Mozilla community respects you, Paul! The fact that you took quotes from jwz yet again just proves that you're an utterly incompetent reporter and should return for a few years of schooling.
The fact that CNet keeps you on in any capacity is a stain on their journalistic integrity.
Monday January 13, 2003
Scalia Becomes Bold
Activist Judging? You be the judge. Really, you be the judge. Because this guy's a nutcase.
Antonin Scalia, that scion of extremism, recently stated at a Religious Freedom day rally (or, I guess as they would have it, a Church-in-State day), that the Constitution has been misinterpreted for years, and signalled that he's ready to open the floodgates on theocracy here at home.
He stated that liberal interpretation of the Constitution has created "...a Constitution that morphs while you look at it like Plasticman." He then proceeded to pull out a Stretch Armstrong doll (that looked remarkably like Al Gore), and tie it into knots. The audience laughed; they got the reference but not the irony.
He continued:
"That is contrary to our whole tradition, to 'in God we trust' on the coins, to (presidential) Thanksgiving proclamations, to (congressional) chaplains, to tax exemption for places of worship, which has always existed in America."
One supporter shouted, "And to Pedophilia, too! Don't forget that, judge! In Pedophilia We Trust!"
Scalia concluded:
"Yes, defining qualities that form the bedrock of our religious tradition, qualities such as race-baiting, intolerance, oppression and sexual perversion, must be allowed to flourish in the deepest recesses of our government."
Sunday January 12, 2003
As you may have noticed, I had essentially taken a break from posting on this blog. There were two factors involved. The first is that it is a very arduous process for me to write. Even simple pieces like this can take an overt amount of time as I revise my thoughts over and over.
The second factor is that I recently took a break from news reading. I moved out all of my news bookmarks to an obscure folder, I removed the news channels from my TV, I stopped reading blogs. I thought, "What is there for me to report on, that other people aren't already reporting much more thoroughly?" And, "The news is always the same -- further erosion of our liberties, further power-grabbing by the Republicans, less stability in the world, a sputtering economy. War War War. Do I need to immerse myself in this day in and day out, when I know that I can have no possible effect on the outcome (because I'm sans money)." And "Protesting is dead, killed by the media. Boycotts are dead, because companies no longer give a damn. All that's left is voting, and that's of little comfort after 2000."
At this point, you might be wondering what my inspiration is for starting to blog again. I hate to disappoint, but I have none. Everything I said above I still feel. I feel that our country has been completely blindsided by this administration, and by the time they're finished, our cherished ideals will be pipedreams. I wonder what it would be like if a man of intelligence and honesty, who even feigned to give a damn about others, had been elected to the presidency. I wonder what it would be like if our press wasn't controlled by people ideologically aligned with the Bush administration. And I wonder how it all went to hell so quickly.
I don't know why I'm deciding to continue blogging, and I don't know what form my posts will take. I hope there are people out there who want to read it; maybe I can inspire someone else.
Saturday January 11, 2003
For the life of me, I can't figure out how I made it on to the blogroll of David Neiwert's new blog, alongside the Rittenhouse Review and Josh Marshall. Maybe he thinks I'm the other Chris Nelson - of the Chris Nelson Report. In any case, thanks David, and good luck with your blog!
Friday January 10, 2003
American public's misconception about our poverty rate:
It's 33 million at or below the poverty line, not 5-10 million. And no, the official poverty rate is $18,000 for a family of four, not $35,000.
Thursday January 02, 2003
Ok, I'm back. Not much to say. Nice, mellow holiday. I've put an embargo on news - I'm not reading it, not watching it, not listening to it. So let me guess - the country's going down the tubes, our relationships with the world are deteriorating, no attention is being paid to the economy, and Iraq war is looming. Did I guess right?
