There was a time...

...when Conservatism was not quite so fascist. Hard to believe, I know. But you know things are screwed when Goldwater sounds appealing. "Our problem is with ... the religious extremists ... who want to destroy everybody who doesn't agree with them. I see them as betrayers of the fundamental principles of conservatism. A lot of so-called conservatives today don't know what the word means." -Barry Goldwater (1994)

Hmm... How long has it been...

...since I stated my belief that Satan is more important to Christianity than Christ is? That Evil is more important, more significant to them than Good is? Fundamentalist Christianity Weds the Military

Newsgroup Stuff for Music Nerds

Okay, you know I dig the newsgroups. Here's an example of what you can find in the alt.guitar.bass newsgroup. I don't even want to know the answer to the question!

“I want to substitute the G7 - as the V of a II-V-I progression in C - with a tritone. So I pick a Db7 chord. When it comes to creating an improv line around this chord, do I use, as a first choice, a lydian Db7 scale? Additionally, can I also consider G7 as a Bmin7 b5 chord, and again what are the scalar possibilities available, other than the lydian approach?”

Rock on!

Our Award-Winning President

Bush Tops List As U.S. Voters Name Worst President, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds"

Still number one! Yeah!

...but not in the red states.

More than 60 percent of U.S. in drought

Hey, we'll be chillin' in nuclear winter soon enough, right?

The Truth Hurts. Lying For Empire.

Lying For Empire

HA HA HA!!!

Wheels are falling off Hummers

"Iris Ziroli's new beast seemed invincible: It could haul a trailer with 6,700 pounds of cargo, climb slopes at a 60-degree angle and zoom through water 20 inches deep without flinching. Or at least, that's what the pamphlets from her Southern California Hummer dealer promised.

That's why the Murrieta real estate agent was so bewildered when the front end of her pewter-colored Hummer H2 sport-utility vehicle collapsed in February 2004, not during a wild off-road trek, but after she bumped a post in a Carl's Jr. drive-through.

When it hit the ground, the undercarriage of her vehicle screeched almost as loudly as her 6-month-old daughter riding in a car seat.

'I thought I was so safe because the H2 is so huge and strong,' Ziroli said. 'The way that Hummer fell apart in that drive-through was uncalled for.'"

Sure, I shouldn't laugh... it's not funny... HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

It's Never Too Soon to Revisit the...

Gay Bushisms!

Not on MY desktop, damnit.

Microsoft sees the beginning of the end for PCs

"In a previous era – the PC era – Microsoft would naturally begin with a PC mindset," he declared. For good measure, he added: "We're in a new era, an era in which the internet is at the centre."

You know why this pisses me off? Because I've used the new MSOffice at work, and I hate the way it's all so web based. Need a help screen? F1 takes you to a website now. If your internet is down, too bad. Oh well...

Ann Richards' Wisdom

Ann Richards on How to Be a Good Republican. She was Texas' good governor.

The Cross Points in All Directions

Religion Taking A Left Turn?, Conservative Christians Watch Out: There's A Big Churchgoing Group Seeking Political Power - CBS News

"We are furious that the religious right has made Jesus into a Republican. That's idolatry," Campolo said. "To recreate Jesus in your own image rather than allowing yourself to be created in Jesus' image is what's wrong with politics."

The Christian left is focusing on:
- Fighting poverty
- Protecting the environment
- Ending the war in Iraq

"Right now the war in Iraq costs us $1 billion per week," said Rev. Jim Wallis, a Christian activist. "And we can't get $5 billion over ten years for child care in this country?"

Texas Repukes Hate America's Founders

Texas GOP: No church-state split, party's platform calls U.S. "Christian nation"

When the Texas Republican Party adopted its platform recently, party leaders left no question as to the importance it placed on religion. The platform calls America a "Christian nation, founded on Judeo-Christian principles," and that has drawn a frustrated reaction from Jewish groups that consider the language exclusionary. Another portion of the platform has stirred additional concerns. "We pledge to exert our influence toward a return to the original intent of the 1st Amendment and dispel the myth of the separation between church and state," the document reads.

If they hate America as it was originally conceived so much, why don't they just go form their own country somewhere else?

Fun with Republican Incompetance

Here's a great tidbit from some political spam I received recently:

Here were the two lead items in the Republican House agenda considered this past week, at a time when the skies of Middle East were being lit up with missiles and rockets: H.J. Res. 88 - Constitutional Amendment to Prohibit Same Sex Marriages, and H.R. 2389 - Pledge Protection Bill (Republicans brought this bill to the House floor that strips federal courts, including the Supreme Court, of the jurisdiction "to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, the Pledge of Allegiance, as defined in section 4 of title 4, or its recitation.")

Yup. That republican majority sets quite an example of model efficiency in government.

Picked from Usenet Newsgroups V: CIA Says Osama Helped Bush in '04

This an old one, but I like it anyway. I mean, Osama Bin Laden, George Bush, the CIA... three dispicable forces, at each others' throats. Their love-hate relationship carries on... and we lose.

CIA: Osama Helped Bush in '04 By Robert Parry July 4, 2006

On Oct. 29, 2004, just four days before the U.S. presidential election, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden released a videotape denouncing George W. Bush. Some Bush supporters quickly spun the diatribe as "Osama's endorsement of John Kerry." But behind the walls of the CIA, analysts had concluded the opposite: that bin-Laden was trying to help Bush gain a second term.

This stunning CIA disclosure is tucked away in a brief passage near the end of Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine, which draws heavily from CIA insiders. Suskind wrote that the CIA analysts based their troubling assessment on classified information, but the analysts still puzzled over exactly why bin-Laden wanted Bush to stay in office.

According to Suskind's book, CIA analysts had spent years "parsing each expressed word of the al-Qaeda leader and his deputy, [Ayman] Zawahiri. What they'd learned over nearly a decade is that bin-Laden speaks only for strategic reasons. .

"Their [the CIA's] assessments, at day's end, are a distillate of the kind of secret, internal conversations that the American public [was] not sanctioned to hear: strategic analysis. Today's conclusion: bin-Laden's message was clearly designed to assist the President's reelection.

"At the five o'clock meeting, [deputy CIA director] John McLaughlin opened the issue with the consensus view: 'Bin-Laden certainly did a nice favor today for the President.'"

McLaughlin's comment drew nods from CIA officers at the table. Jami Miscik, CIA deputy associate director for intelligence, suggested that the al-Qaeda founder may have come to Bush's aid because bin-Laden felt threatened by the rise in Iraq of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; bin-Laden might have thought his leadership would be diminished if Bush lost the White House and their "eye-to-eye struggle" ended.

But the CIA analysts also felt that bin-Laden might have recognized how Bush's policies - including the Guantanamo prison camp, the Abu Ghraib scandal and the endless bloodshed in Iraq - were serving al-Qaeda's strategic goals for recruiting a new generation of jihadists.

"Certainly," the CIA's Miscik said, "he would want Bush to keep doing what he's doing for a few more years," according to Suskind's account of the meeting.

As their internal assessment sank in, the CIA analysts drifted into silence, troubled by the implications of their own conclusions. "An ocean of hard truths before them - such as what did it say about U.S. policies that bin-Laden would want Bush reelected - remained untouched," Suskind wrote.

One immediate consequence of bin-Laden breaking nearly a year of silence to issue the videotape the weekend before the U.S. presidential election was to give the Bush campaign a much needed boost. From a virtual dead heat, Bush opened up a six-point lead, according to one poll.

Symbiotic Relationship

The implications of this new evidence are troubling, too, for the American people as they head toward another election in November 2006 that also is viewed as a referendum on Bush's prosecution of the "war on terror."

As we have reported previously at Consortiumnews.com, a large body of evidence already existed supporting the view that the Bushes and the bin-Ladens have long operated with a symbiotic relationship that may be entirely unspoken but nevertheless has been a case of each family acting in ways that advance the interests of the other. [See "Osama's Briar Patch."]

Before al-Qaeda launched the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks against New York and Washington, Bush was stumbling in a presidency that many Americans felt was headed nowhere. As Bush took a month-long vacation at his Texas ranch in August 2001, his big issue was a plan to restrict stem-cell research on moral grounds.

Privately, Bush's neoconservative advisers were chafing under what they saw as the complacency of the American people unwilling to take on the mantle of global policeman as the world's sole superpower. The neocons hoped for some "Pearl Harbor" incident that would galvanize a public consensus for action against Iraq and other "rogue states."

Other senior administration officials, such as Vice President Dick Cheney, dreamed of the restoration of the imperial presidency that - after Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal - had been cut down to size by Congress, the courts and the press. Only a national crisis would create a cover for a new assertion of presidential power.

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, bin-Laden and his al-Qaeda militants were facing defeat after defeat. Their brand of Islamic fundamentalism had been rejected in Muslim societies from Algeria and Egypt to Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Bin-Laden and his lieutenants had even been expelled from the Sudan.

Bin-Laden's extremists had been chased to the farthest corners of the planet, in this case the caves of Afghanistan. At this critical juncture, al-Qaeda's brain trust decided that their best hope was to strike at the United States and count on a clumsy reaction that would offend the Islamic world and rally angry young Muslims to al-Qaeda's banner.

So, by early summer 2001, the clock ticked down to 9/11 as 19 al-Qaeda operatives positioned themselves inside the United States and prepared to attack. But U.S. intelligence analysts picked up evidence of al-Qaeda's plans by sifting through the "chatter" of electronic intercepts. The U.S. warning system was "blinking red."

'Something So Big'

Over the weekend of July Fourth 2001, a well-placed U.S. intelligence source passed on a disturbing piece of information to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who later recounted the incident in an interview with Alternet.

"The person told me that there was some concern about an intercept that had been picked up," Miller said. "The incident that had gotten everyone's attention was a conversation between two members of al-Qaeda. And they had been talking to one another, supposedly expressing disappointment that the United States had not chosen to retaliate more seriously against what had happened to the [destroyer USS] Cole [which was bombed on Oct. 12, 2000].

"And one al-Qaeda operative was overheard saying to the other, 'Don't worry; we're planning something so big now that the U.S. will have to respond.'"

In the Alternet interview, published in May 2006 after Miller resigned from the Times, the reporter expressed regret that she had not been able to nail down enough details about the intercept to get the story into the newspaper.

But the significance of her recollection is that more than two months before the 9/11 attacks, the CIA knew that al-Qaeda was planning a major attack with the intent of inciting a U.S. military reaction - or in this case, an overreaction.

The CIA tried to warn Bush about the threat on Aug. 6, 2001, with the hope that presidential action could energize government agencies and head off the attack. The CIA sent analysts to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, to brief him and deliver a report entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US."

Bush was not pleased by the intrusion. He glared at the CIA briefer and snapped, "All right, you've covered your ass," according to Suskind's book.

Then, putting the CIA's warning in the back of his mind and ordering no special response, Bush returned to a vacation of fishing, clearing brush and working on a speech about stem-cell research.

Al-Qaeda's Gamble

For its part, al-Qaeda was running a risk that the United States might strike a precise and devastating blow against the terrorist organization, eliminating it as an effective force without alienating much of the Muslim world.

If that happened, the cause of Islamic extremism could have been set back years, without eliciting much sympathy from most Muslims for a band of killers who wantonly murdered innocent civilians.

After the 9/11 attacks, al-Qaeda's gamble almost failed as the CIA, backed by U.S. Special Forces, ousted bin-Laden's Taliban allies in Afghanistan and cornered much of the al-Qaeda leadership in the mountains of Tora Bora near the Pakistani border.

But instead of using U.S. ground troops to seal the border, Bush relied on the Pakistani army, which was known to have mixed sympathies about al-Qaeda. The Pakistani army moved its blocking force belatedly into position while bin-Laden and others from his inner circle escaped.

Then, instead of staying focused on bin-Laden and his fellow fugitives, Bush moved on to other objectives. Bush shifted U.S. Special Forces away from bin-Laden and al-Qaeda and toward Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

Many U.S. terrorism experts, including White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, were shocked at this strategy, since the intelligence community didn't believe that Hussein's secular dictatorship had any working relationship with al-Qaeda - and had no role in the 9/11 attacks.

Nevertheless, Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, ousting Hussein from power but also unleashing mayhem across Iraqi society. Soon, the Iraq War - combined with controversies over torture and mistreatment of Muslim detainees - were serving as recruitment posters for al-Qaeda.

Under Jordanian exile Zarqawi, al-Qaeda set up terrorist cells in central Iraq, taking root amid the weeds of sectarian violence and the nation's general anarchy. Instead of an obscure group of misfits, al-Qaeda was achieving legendary status among many Muslims as the defenders of the Islamic holy lands, battling the new "crusaders" led by Bush.

Back in the USA

Meanwhile, back in the United States, the 9/11 attacks had allowed Bush to reinvent himself as the "war president" who operated almost without oversight. He saw his approval ratings surge from the 50s to the 90s - and watched as the Republican Party consolidated its control of the U.S. Congress in 2002.

Though the worsening bloodshed in Iraq eroded Bush's popularity in 2004, political adviser Karl Rove still framed the election around Bush's aggressive moves to defend the United States and to punish American enemies.

Whereas Bush was supposedly resolute, Democrat Kerry was portrayed as weak and indecisive, a "flip-flopper." Kerry, however, scored some political points in the presidential debates by citing the debacle at Tora Bora that enabled bin-Laden to escape.
>
The race was considered neck-and-neck as it turned toward the final weekend of campaigning. Then, the shimmering image of Osama bin-Laden appeared on American televisions, speaking directly to the American people, mocking Bush and offering a kind of truce if U.S. forces withdrew from the Middle East.

"He [Bush] was more interested in listening to the child's story about the goat rather than worry about what was happening to the [twin] towers," bin-Laden said. "So, we had three times the time necessary to accomplish the events. Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Any nation that does not attack us will not be attacked."

Though both Bush and Kerry denounced bin-Laden's statement, right-wing pundits, bloggers and talk-show hosts portrayed it as an effort to hurt Bush and help Kerry - which understandably prompted the exact opposite reaction among many Americans. [For instance, conservative blog site, Little Green Footballs, headlined its Oct. 31, 2004, commentary as "Bin Laden Threatens U.S. States Not to Vote for Bush."] However, behind the walls of secrecy at Langley, Virginia, U.S. intelligence experts reviewed the evidence and concluded that bin-Laden had precisely the opposite intent. He was fully aware that his videotape would encourage the American people to do the opposite of what he recommended.

By demanding an American surrender, bin-Laden knew U.S. voters would instinctively want to fight. That way bin-Laden helped ensure that George W. Bush would stay in power, would continue his clumsy "war on terror" - and would drive thousands of new recruits into al-Qaeda's welcoming arms.

Picked From Usenet Newsgroups IV

Another one from Usenet:

Venezuela, the Next Iraq

We’re going nuke Iran next? Pshaw. Venezuela is clearly the next to enjoy the benefits of American democracy... News stories about Hugo Chávez are coming more often and are more bizarre.

A list of articles follows, like this one:

Venezuela Smuggling Cocaine to U.S. Through Mexico

[just a reminder, we get 80% of our cocaine from American-controlled Plan Columbia]

Reasons Why Bush Is Playing "In Just Cause"

This article is over a year old, but it is a good review for why we have Plan Venezuela.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/619/619p17.htm

The Chávez success that frightens the Neo-Cons the most is probably this:

"The Venezuelan government has also begun cracking down on corporate tax evasion, fining and temporarily closing down businesses that fail to obey the law. McDonald's and Coca-Cola have been two high-profile targets of the campaign, forced to shut down their operations in Venezuela this year for two days for failing to have their books in order."

"The anti-tax evasion campaign has netted the Venezuelan government a 50% increase in tax revenue, which the government is using to fund a 24% increase in the minimum wage."

How much lower can the right possibly go!?

Disgusting (but typical): Think Progress » Right-Wing Attacks American Evacuees: ‘Ingrates,’ ‘Whining,’ ‘Spoiled-Rotten Little Children’

Is the whole country for sale?

Foreign Companies Buy U.S. Roads, Bridges

Roads and bridges built by U.S. taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far foreign-owned companies are doing the buying.

On a single day in June, an Australian-Spanish partnership paid $3.8 billion to lease the Indiana Toll Road. An Australian company bought a 99-year lease on Virginia's Pocahontas Parkway, and Texas officials decided to let a Spanish-American partnership build and run a toll road from Austin to Seguin for 50 years.

Few people know that the tolls from the U.S. side of the tunnel between Detroit and Windsor, Canada, go to a subsidiary of an Australian company -- which also owns a bridge in Alabama.

Yup, the global economy begins at home. What did you think that toll money went to pay for the road maintenance?

Off the Path

Okay, you want to really get away from it all?

Well, visit this site and you can become part of a tribe on a tropical island.

Or, visit this site to consider the frosty alternative in the Alaskan wilderness.

Don't forget to bring your laptop 8^)

Bush=Asshole (Again)

Everywhere I have ever worked, this would be considered sexual harrassment.

What in the farthest reaches of hell is wrong with the complete idiot who the neocons installed as President of the United States?!

Picked From Usenet Newsgroups I: UPDATE

See Update at bottom of post

I've saved a crapload of stuff from Usenet meanderings, so I'm gonna start cleaning out my "save" folder and sharing it with you!

Here we go, kicking off with a statement by Rush Limbaugh from 1988:

"And now the liberals want to stop President Reagan from selling chemical warfare agents and military equipment to Saddam Hussein, and why? Because Saddam 'allegedly' gassed a few Kurds in his own country. Mark my words. All of this talk of Saddam Hussein being a 'war criminal' or 'committing crimes against humanity' is the same old thing. LIBERAL HATE SPEECH! And speaking of poison gas... I SAY WE ROUND UP ALL THE DRUG ADDICTS AND GAS THEM." - Rush Limbaugh, Nov. 3, 1988

Okay, it was pointed out that this quote was false, so I want to retract it now - let no one say that we propogate disinformation like the right-wing propaganda slime generators who support the Bush regime. Here is the site which describes the true source of the quote.

Now, just so no one is disapointed (too much), here are some various RL quotes. It's actually not too easy to find quotes from the 80's, but I will keep an eye out for them. I remember hearing him in the 80's, when the Reagan-Bush administration was giving (our tax) money and WMD's to Saddam Hussein, and I'm sure RL supported that wholeheartedly.

The Doctor Is In

Newsflash, Truthseekers: If you really want the straight dope, the real deal, the raw cookie dough, or at the very least the world's cheapest psych consult, check out The Doctor Is In.

Personally, I'm waiting for someone to ask, "Do these pants make me look fat?"

Oh, God(s)

Are you fed up with the same old do-nothing, ineffectual deity? Do your prayers go in one divine ear and out the other? Are you sick to death of saying "Goddamnit!" and nothing happens? Well, you have the power of the consumer on your side, brothers and sisters.

That's right... shop around! Go to Godchecker.com - Your Guide To The Gods, and look for an alternative to the guy who looks suspiciously like Santa Claus. It's a great big universe out there, and humans have had... well, all of history to make up God after God after God...

So, what the hell? Try on a new God this weekend... it's about damned time.

Picked From Usenet Newsgroups III

This is old news, but the consistent thing about right-wing politics is that it remains infuriating long after it has been ignored or forgotten by the mainstream press:

A White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001... officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated. "Have you ever read the 2005 energy bill? It's a hoot. It's very clearly indefensible. It was another one of those non-stories that should have been public outrage."

There's a link, too... unfortunately.

Say it ain't so!

I know that all good things must pass, but I'll hate to see You Tube go.

Picked From Usenet Newsgroups II

Found on alt.impeach.bush:

"The reason Conservatives are so angry now is that they have failed and they know it. Six years of total control of government and what have they achieved?

"Abortion is still legal, school prayers are still banned, creationism is still banned, not a single federal agency has been abolished, not a single gun control law has been repealed, none of them even mention balanced budgets any more, their Crusade in Iraq has turned into an unpopular and expensive quagmire, their most recent attempts to amend the Constitution were ridiculous failures, and even Bush doesn't talk about Social Security Reform anymore.

"Their day in the sun came and went, and they have nothing to show for it but mountains of debt and the contempt of the world."

Reprinted from Last Year: "Happy" 4th of July

July 4, 1776

...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...

A Breath of Fresh Air for the 4th of July

It appears that the thrill is gone for many followers of rightwing media lies, propaganda, and hatespeak:

"An odd thing seems to have happened to mighty right-wing talking head media juggernaut. They are still talking, but fewer people seem to be listening -- at least on the Internet."

Right on! My faith in humanity might, I say might, be restored, if more sheeple begin to see the light and realize what a gargantuan load of dinosaur poo-poo they've been ingesting from the rightard media.

Also encouraging is the news that the Giggling Murder Monkey's approval ratings continue to plummet. Maybe there's hope that some people can wake up and smell the !@@#% coffee.

"Outside the Box"

With a tip o' the cap to my anarchist friend up north:

Is anyone familiar with these people? I think it's very interesting.

What is a Freegan? Freegans are people who employ alternative strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. Freegans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed.

After years of trying to boycott products from egregious corporations responsible for human rights violations, environmental destruction, and animal abuse, many of us found that no matter what we bought we ended up supporting something deplorable. We came to realize that the problem isn't just a few bad corporations but the entire system itself.

Freeganism is a total boycott of an economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations and where massively complex systems of productions ensure that all the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which we may never even consider. Thus, instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, we avoid buying anything to the greatest degree we are able.

If you have the constitution for it, living outside society's mainstream is a way to challenge the universe to meet you on your own terms. But is it possible? Yes and no. The further outside the boundaries of society you go, the more diffcult life can be. But to some, it may also become more rewarding. Of course, you take on responsibilities that others take for granted: healthcare, for example (know your herbs!). Still, it's fascinating. And, the very notion that it is possible is comforting during these times when the writing on the wall does not describe a bright future.