Apocalypse How?

I am a leftist blogger. Anyone who reads this thing for more than the required 20 seconds at blog explosion knows that, and even some of the 20 second skimmers might be able to tell from my blog template that at the very least I'm no fan of the current administration. But as far as blog reading goes, I find myself more interested in reading the blogs of people with whom I disagree, just as long as they can exhibit more intelligence and thought than the knuckleheads who get the entirety of their opinions from the right wing shock jocks and Fox News talking heads. One of these blogs is Valley of the Shadow, written by a guy who like me is an ex-Washington political hack now living on the left coast. While I find his writing to be well thought and well composed, sometimes reading it can make me feel like banging my head against the wall, particularly anything relating to the Israel/Palestine issue. The problem is that Israel/Palestine is an incredibly complex issue. You've got both sides committing atrocities upon each other on a daily basis. Each side has a legitimate gripe with the other, yet each side also has extremists who just want to wipe out the other rather than try to figure out a way to stop the atrocity and human rights nightmare that is happening all around them. Here in the US, the attitudes toward this conflict is as extremely divided as our electorate. There are plenty of people like myself who just want the killing to stop. But then you've got people who blindly put their support on one side or the other without any critical thought. While I would think that people like me are in the majority, it is the un-critical, hardline, black and white thinkers who are the loudest, and they have made it virtually impossible for anything positive to happen. There are definitely some people who have latched onto the Palestinian cause as an outlet to their anti-semitism. Of course, these type of people would be just as happy to see Arabs wiped off the face of the earth as they would the Jews, but I guess they're happy to take what they can get. I would think that these people are a very small minority of that camp, and in no way could ever be considered to be part of the left. Then you've got others who have latched onto the Palestinian cause because they see the Palestinians as an oppressed people. They are critical of the policies of Israel, and often make excuses for tactics that murder innocent people. On the other side, you've got people like JSF, the writer of Valley of the Shadow, who have a personal attachment to Israel and see their friends and families killed in this conflict and are rightly pissed off about it. But unfortunately, they see that there are some scary anti-semites who have latched onto the Palestinian cause and the reactionary protester types who make excuses for suicide bombing, lump them in with everybody who has any sort of legitimate criticism of Israel, throw in the entire Democratic party and call them all a bunch of anti-semites. And then you've got a whole other type of person who blindly and unquestionably supports Israel, no less scary than the neo-nazi fringe on the other side. These are the Evangelical Christians. They have no doubt in their minds that once the end comes, every last Jew will be going straight to hell. But in order for their great big end of the world orgy to happen, the Jews have to control the holy land. So they have given their unwavering support to Israel, but only because of this crazy apocalyptic fantasy of theirs. I personally see that as being just as anti-semitic as the neo-nazis. Both of them are using this conflict to further their own agenda and the Jews end up on the losing end of both (though with the Evangelicals their demise is entirely imaginary). I brought this up to JSF and asked for his opinion. His answer was rather disappointing. To him, blind but fake support for insane reasons is better than legitimate criticism. This saddens me.

America is Sick

Nobody can possibly deny that we have a health care crisis in this country. The problem is how we as a nation choose to address this problem. Many other countries have seen the inequity in a completely private health care system and have socialized medicine to some degree. These countries see themselves as a collective group who rise and fall together. The hyper-capitalists in this country paint that sort of collectivist thinking as evil and a threat to freedom. They say that the free markets will take care of everything, and that the reason so many people are without health insurance is because regulation has driven up the cost. They insinuate that those who can't afford coverage don't deserve to have it. Employers don't want to supply health care to their workers in order to cut their costs and maximize their profits. The fact is that none of these arguments matter one bit. We have a health care crisis in this country and capitalist social darwinism is sure as hell not going to get people the health care they need. Michael Moore has a new documentary about this problem. Right off the bat, his right wing critics are going to say that nothing in this documentary that none of them will actually see is all a bunch of lies because Michael Moore is fat. Don't listen to these asshats. They hate the fact that the left has a wildly popular documentarian and all they have are some lame shock jocks and the Fox News Channel to push their agenda. Here's the trailer of Sicko. Get ready to be pissed off, and be pissed off enough to actually do something about this crisis!

Ugly Right Wing Gloating to Commence in 3... 2...

Anti-war activist and most reviled woman to the extreme right since Jane Fonda, Cindy Sheehan, has given up her fight to end the war. You can read her statement here. My heart really goes out to her. This is a woman who lost a child to Bush's lies about WMDs in Iraq and put her grief into action. She camped outside of Bush's Texas vacation ranch and brought the message of the illegitimacy and human cost of his war right to his door. And then things got nuts. She quickly became the face of the entire anti-war movement, and while passionate about the cause, she was not always well spoken and managed to give the pro-war crowd plenty of ammo to use against her and the movement. She also got a good taste for the uglier side of activist groups: "I have also tried to work within a peace movement that often puts personal egos above peace and human life. This group won’t work with that group; he won’t attend an event if she is going to be there; and why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway? It is hard to work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many divisions." Tell me about it, Cindy! That's a big part of why I've retired from activism and gotten into sarcastic and cynical blogging and filmmaking. But besides having to deal with the egos and infighting, she also suffered great personal loss throughout her years as the face of the anti-war movement. Her husband left her, she spent every dime she had on sustaining her struggle, and her health failed her to the point where she almost died in Crawford. I think the final straw was that once she started holding the heat to the Democrats on ending the war, they turned on her like a bunch of rabid dogs. The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a "tool" of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our "two-party" system? However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the "left" started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of "right or left", but "right and wrong." It's sad to see somebody who has gone through so much get so burned out and give up, but I can relate to her feelings of futility. My personal recommendation is to do what I did when I got burned out on politics... get creative and make fun of all the ridiculous people who are only in it for themselves. Write a book or a screenplay, and don't take any prisoners with it. You've had an incredible experience, at times both heartbreaking and exhilarating, and I think people would benefit from hearing a brutally honest account of it. Rather than providing links to the truly nasty stuff being said about this brave and passionate woman by a bunch of neanderthal right wing bloggers, I'd like to close this post with the quote from her farewell letter that speaks the most to me. I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt "two" party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat? Thanks for everything, Cindy. May you find peace in your life even if it can't be achieved in the rest of the world.

What if They Threw a War and Nobody Came?

Well it looks like Mr. Tired of all the Liberal Rhetoric Out There was still at it arguing with me even after I declared an inarguable victory. Like Seinfeld, it's rather funny and it's about absolutely nothing. According to the rocket scientist over there, I hate the military and anyone who disagrees with me. He follows that with a few paragraphs of reactionary blah blah blah, outrage at John Edwards for stating the obvious about the fearmongering of this administration, and wraps it all up with some words of "wisdom" from Rush Limbaugh. I think everybody should read Tired of All the Liberal Rhetoric Out There as a warning. Kids, this is what can happen to you if you listen to too much right wing hate radio.

A Cross-post from Another Blog

I haven't done much with my video blog in the last few months, mainly because I haven't shot anything that I thought might be of interest to people outside of my family. While this is another family video, I thought it might be fun enough to post here, silly enough to lighten the mood from the usual politics, and cute enough to win me some blog battles. Click To Play

A Post for a News-Filled Holiday Weekend

Wow, there's an awful lot happening in the news this weekend! Everybody running for president has used Memorial Day to get some press, there are two humpback whales intent on dying in the Sacramento River, and of course the biggest story on the news channels this weekend was Lindsay Lohan's DUI arrest. But I'm not going to waste this blog post on any of that shit today. I found something better than these crappy current events to blog about. There's a great article in the New York Times Magazine about Judd Apatow that you all really ought to read. If you don't know him by name, you definitely know him by his work. Most recently, you'd know him as the guy who co-wrote and directed The 40 Year Old Virgin. He also produced Anchorman and Talladega Nights. Before that, he created and produced some of the most brilliant TV shows ever to be canceled before completing a full season, Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared (and less brilliant but just as canceled, the Ben Stiller Show). In between all of this, he's punched up just about every funny comedy script in the last 10 years. He's got a new movie coming out which I wasn't too interested in seeing based on the trailer, but after reading the article I definitely want to check it out. He was also on Howard Stern last week, talking about a lot more than what was in the NYT article, which you can download here.

Screwed Again!

At my previous job, I had a very angry boss who thought everyone was out to get him. One of his catchphrases was "screwed again!" He would write that on invoices that he thought the salesmen had sold too cheaply, and of course the rest of us started yelling it at each other in his voice all the time. America has been screwed again by our elected leaders. To paraphrase Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, choosing between democrats and republicans is like choosing which pile of vomit to lick first. Being a progressive leftist, neither one of these parties comes close to standing up for what I believe in. Both are authoritarian corporate whores, but at least the democrats haven't been taken over by the religious nutjobs, so I tend to vote for them. And last November, America voted them into a majority of the House and Senate so they could do one very specific job, get us the hell out of Bush's ridiculous war in Iraq. They passed a funding bill with deadlines which got vetoed, so they buckled, called it a compromise, claimed victory and the American people... Screwed Again! I've been trying to come up with a rant worthy of this complete betrayal all day yesterday, but Keith Olbermann did it better:

Best Headline Ever!

Check this out. It would be better without the quotes, but the fact that they put quotes around it means that they knew both possible meanings and put it in there anyway.

Bomb Threat Thwarted

A religious extremist brought a bunch of explosives and detonators to a gathering of 7000 people with the intention to blow up a different group of religious extremists. Did this happen in Iraq? Israel or the Palestinian Territories? Sudan? Virginia? A Liberty University student was arrested after telling a family member he had made bombs and planned to attend the funeral of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, authorities said... Investigators determined that Uhl had problems with a group that protested at the funeral, Gaddy said. The group, the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church, sent about a dozen members who claimed Falwell was a friend of gays to protest across the street. The group also has picketed soldiers' burials, claiming the deaths are God's punishment for a nation that harbors gays. [full article] Who is crazier here? Fred Phelps' group of loonies who would think that the guy who blamed 9/11 on the gays as being too easy on gays? Or somebody who took such obvious stupidity seriously enough to try to kill people? Sometimes I wonder if Phelps and his family aren't just an elaborate put-on by some extreme atheists trying to make the religious right look even more ridiculous than they already do. On the other hand, they are so extreme that other extreme right wing Evangelicals who pretty much believe the same things but don't demonstrate it by protesting funerals get to paint themselves as mainstream by pointing to Phelps and his gang as being the extremists. I hope more of these Evangelicals who are ready to kill for their cause come out of the woodwork so America can wake up and see them for the threat to our democracy that they really are.

Blog Fight Update

Holy crap! Mr. Tired of All the Liberal Rhetoric Out There must have had a few drinks before posting his rebuttal (can you even call it a rebuttal if it makes no sense?) because he's all over the road on this one. If you can attempt to follow along and need that special sort of laugh that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable, like when somebody makes a joke at the expense of the retarded, you can check it out here.

A Good Old Fashioned Blog Fight!

Since I've started this blog up again, I've tried to be a bit less confrontational with other bloggers, adopting more of a blog and let blog attitude. Back in the old days, I would mercilessly bash anyone who I disagreed with. Now that I'm a dad, I really try to be less angry about things that are out of my hands like politics. But sometimes another blog will come along that I find so ignorantly offensive that I just can't not say something. No, I'm not talking about Valley of the Shadow with the constant talk about how everyone on the left are a bunch of anti-semites. Sure, he's incredibly wrong about that, but I can at least relate to him as we're both former Washington political hacks now out in California, and we both at least attempt to sound intelligent with what we write. One time when I was looking around on Blog Explosion, I came across a blog that offended me before I even read it. By the title alone, "Tired of all the Liberal Rhetoric Out There," you can tell this guy is looking for a fight. The postings are incredibly ignorant rants about how the democrats (except he doesn't actually use the word "democrat," it's always "dumbocrap." How incredibly mature!) are anti-american and trying to undermine Bush's wonderful and glorious war blah blah blah. For the most part, I just ignore it and move on to the next blog, but a few weeks ago I couldn't resist the urge to reply to a post about how the spending bill that had a timetable for troop withdrawal was undermining the war on terror. Considering that pre-emptively attacking a secular mideast country and throwing it into a civil war has about as much to do with the war on terror as last night's horrible season finale of Desperate Housewives (don't even get me started on how bad that show is), I needed to call bullshit, and I made a comment lambasting his connection of Iraq with the war on terror and urging him and the rest of the people who still think this war is a good idea to please go ahead and enlist. And then I promptly forgot completely about that blog. Then I stumbled upon it again last night and scrolled through a series of reactionary screeds against illegal immigrants, political correctness, Ted Kennedy, Opie and Anthony and then finally, me. I had my very own post slamming my comments about the war! You should read the whole thing to put it into context, but I'll also quickly sum it up... any criticism of the war is irrelevant because anyone who disagrees is blinded by hatred of Bush. The Muslims want to kill us all and destroy our whole society. Despite polling that shows the opposite, the majority of this country support the war and Bush. Read it for yourself. So of course, I had to reply, and I offered some very concrete questions: So please explain to us all how taking a secular middle east country and plunging it into a civil war between the various sects of these “islamofascists” makes us safer? How does diverting our resources from going after the people who attacked us make us safer? How does creating a whole generation of people who have a damn good reason to want to kill Americans for what we did to their country make us safer? I got a reply, not on the blog but in my personal email, telling me that I'm brainwashed. Needless to say, it did not address a single one of my questions, blamed the "liberal media" for brainwashing me, and and was a big rant about how if we don't win in Iraq that the "Islamo-fascists" will take the war here to the US. I don't know why he would take that argument to email rather than on his blog. I replied that I'd be happy to whup his ass in this debate on our blogs rather than privately. Honestly, I think that anybody reading through the exchange can see that I've pretty much already done that. But since we're dealing with the sort of conservative who thinks that spouting off "dumbocrap" this and "islamofascist" that is a debate, I guess I need to itemize each and every area where he is wrong. First off, since you liberals seem Hell bent on your Bush hatred, there is nothing that anyone can say to persuade you people into thinking differently. So basically, anything that you disagree with can be chalked up to this irrational "Bush hatred." That's an awfully easy way out of actually doing any thinking. Nothing except giving you the cut and run you want will do it. Maybe if we did that, you idiots would realize that it is better to fight the war there, than to have to fight it here, with no choice in the matter, because people, that is where this whole thing is going if you get your way and we cut and run. You have to know that is what our enemy wants us to do. You're making an awful lot of ridiculous assumptions here, and you know what happens when you ASSUME things, right? For one, Iraq never was in the position to fight any war with us here or there. And they sure aren't in that position now. They're too busy fighting their own civil war, and even if they weren't, they simply do not have the resources to bring the fight to us. But as I've said before and will say again, if you think it's such a great idea to keep wasting our lives over there, don't type about it, go enlist. You people think that since you won the last election, you have the majority of the American people on your side. Hey, it worked for your side when you held a narrow majority, but I was really basing my statement on the majority of people being against the war on polling. The people decided to give you a chance to give them what they really want, but you are all too stupid to realize that what the people really want is to win this war. What exactly is winning this war? Once we found out that that we were there under bogus pretenses, there really is no victory to be had. What we have now is a civil war in another country that we have no business fighting. But once again, if you think it is worth fighting, stop typing and get your ass to a recruitment center pronto! The liberal press is still in shock over the Conservatives winning in France when according to you, Conservatives do not give people what they want. Are you kidding me? What does France have to do with anything? And where is this supposed liberal media shock? A French conservative is still probably more liberal than your average democrat here. Here is the reality of the situation people. The Conservative ideals, when implemented, are what the people want. And you base this on what exactly? The American public hates to be lied too, and now you liberals are the ones lying, by having your Liberal news media reporting things with a liberal slant to it….and thinking that the majority of the American public believes what they are printing. The truth is, they don’t. The public knew in 2004 that Bush lied us into a war but they still re-elected him. But that's beside the point. You're going into the stupid zone by blaming everything on this so-called "liberal media." Conservative intellectuals such as William Kristol will be the first to tell you that this whole "liberal media" thing is nothing more than intellectual laziness on the part of conservative non-intellectuals to make excuses for their own bad press. And if the "liberal media" are lying to the public, then how come "fair and balanced" Fox News isn't reporting anything drastically different? They have a conservative tone and bias, but they're still reporting on the same news. The keyboard commandos, as you so succently put it, acutally is the silent majority who is finally learning to vocalize what they want, instead of being quiet about it all the time. Hopefully the next step here is, for them to get off of their butts and start contacting their representatives and telling them to get off their butts and start doing the right thing. That's funny, every poll I've seen seems to state the exact opposite. The silent majority has woken up and realized they allowed their country to make a huge mistake, and they have gotten off their butts, contacted their representatives, elected new representatives, and are pushing them all to correct this mistake and not spill another drop of our blood on this mistake. Start telling the truth about what the American people really want. Jason, if we don’t start doing this, in the near future, we are going to be fighting Islamic Fanatics, not in Iraq, or Iran…..but right here on American soil. I certainly hope that you really do not want that. When all else fails, there's always fearmongering! Even if there actually was a threat of this, your side has cried wolf so many times that Americans aren't buying it anymore. But then again, I'm not hearing any specifics from you, just a bunch of wild speculation without any sort of base in reality to anchor them to. The war we are in is the same war that was started when the Islamic Fascists attacked our country in 2001, and killed 3,000+ of our citizens in several hours. Riiiiiight! How many Iraqis were flying those planes? How many Iraqis were in on the planning? The fact is, Al Quaeda hated Iraq just about as much as they hate the US. Iraq was a secular Arab state, and that goes against every ideal of the fundamentalist Islam theocracy that Al Quaeda are willing to kill and die for. But then again, if you truly believe this, then you probably know where your local recruitment center is and you really ought to get off your computer and sign the hell up. You still want out of this war? Explain it to the families of the people who were killed that day by Islamists who didn’t care who they killed, just as long as they were Americans. You bet your ass I still want out of this war. As a matter of fact, many of the families of people who were killed that day want out of this war. And once again, how on earth does this war in Iraq have anything whatsoever to do with what happened on 9/11? You are entitled to believe what you want, even if there is no basis in fact. But if you feel so strongly about it, how come you haven't put your own life on the line yet? And Jason, they still feel that way. They only want to kill Americans….and that includes you too. The thing that would win this war Jason, is for people like you, and Harry Reid to stop micro-managing the war that the soldiers want to win, instead of losing like you want them to do. Indeed, there are groups out there that want to kill Americans, and now thanks to this war, there are a whole lot more of them. This war was lost before the first Iraqi was shocked and awed because it was illegitimate from the getgo. Now it's time to get the hell out of there. Yes Jason, the soldiers want to win this war. I think you'd have a much better idea of what the soldiers wanted if you actually became one instead of just blogging about how wrong everybody is about this. And to the American Press…….start printing the truth. If you did, the American public would know that we are winning this war, that Iraq is more secure than you have let on, and that for every American death, many many more of the enemy has died. What exactly constitutes victory in this war? And who exactly are "the enemy" here? We invaded a country and some of them are fighting back. And what does the media have to gain by lying about this war? What special information are you privy to that none of the rest of America is? I think what you really need is some first hand information, which you can only get if you get off your ass and enlist already! Of course, you never hear that. You never hear of how the schools are back open there. You never hear that 80% of the country is secure. You never hear of the Heroism of our troops. Get with it and start reporting the truth, so people like Jason can stop cussing about our president…….no wait….that would never happen. The Bush hatred thing and all…… Which 80%? Is that the uninhabited desert? The country is in a bloody civil war. It's great that schools are open, and it's the heroism of our troops that makes it absolutely fucking heartbreaking that we are wasting their heroic lives in a war we have no business fighting. But don't worry about any of the actual legitimate reasons we, the majority of Americans, have to be against this war when that can all be blamed on "Bush hatred" and the "liberal media." I don't expect you to agree with any of this. But what I do expect you to do is put down your mouse and get your ass to the nearest recruiter and get over to Iraq to fight this war that you think is such a great idea. If you're too old, send your kids. If you don't have kids or they're ineligible, urge your readers to enlist. Here's a handy link for you. Don't be a Yellow Elephant Keyboard Commando. It's time to put up or shut up. And that's pretty much all I've got to say on this topic.

Sunday Sermon - Jerry Falwell: Still Dead

So it's Sunday and Jerry Falwell has not risen from the dead like some bloated Jesus zombie, and I wanted to take this opportunity to put up a video on the topic of this dead christio-fascist. There's no shortage of clips of Christopher Hitchens on his corpse kicking media tour, and despite my other issues with the guy, he made the case against Jerry very eloquently and with inarguable truth on shows like 360 and Hanity and Colmes. But he gets enough blog love. Today the guest preacher of my Sunday Sermon is the Reverend Mona Lot. Preach on, sister!

Sing a Song for Hillary

So the Hillary Clinton campaign is looking for a theme song. As anyone who regularly reads this blog knows, I'm not a fan of Hillary whatsoever. I think she's an opportunistic power-mongering authoritarian career politician who doesn't really believe in anything. While I typically have to hold my nose when voting for the kinds of democrats that make it through the primaries, I'm not sure I could stomach pulling the lever for Hillary. Back to the song choices... The poll on her website offers the following choices: U2 - City of Blinding Lights - There are better U2 songs than this one, don't you think? KT Tunstall - Suddenly I See - Who will even remember this song in a year? Smashmouth - I'm a Believer - a cover tune? That reeks of musical ignorance and would definitely lose the music dork vote. The Temptations - Get Ready - actually not a bad choice at all Dixie Chicks - Ready to Run - the Dixie Chicks would be a nice "up yours" to the reactionary right wing crowd, but a country song would be lame Shania Twain - Rock this Country - the only thing lamer than a country song would be a pop-country song U2 - Beautiful Day - has anyone in this campaign heard any pre-1990 U2? Jesus Jones - Right Here Right Now - choosing a song by a band with Jesus in their name who is not a christian band would piss off the evangelicals, so that would actually be a decent choice. The Staple Singers - I'll Take You There - another good choice So, I'd like to have a little bit of fun at the expense of her campaign, enough so that I'm even reaching out to the the right wing bloggers on this one. Let's hammer that campaign with a song that really says "Hillary." That song could only be American Nightmare by Rob Zombie with Howard Stern. It's perfect because not only would her presidency be an American nightmare, but because this is the 21st century and all campaign songs ought to have a chorus that repeats "yeah you motherfuckers" over and over again. So please go to her site and vote often for this song as a write-in vote. Thanks.

Hungry Like the Wolf

What can you say about Paul Wolfowitz? He's the comb-licking "mastermind" behind the war in Iraq. He's wanted to attack Iraq for ages, and saw a golden opportunity when planes came crashing into our skyscrapers. What does a guy like that do after sending a whole bunch of people off to die over lies and manipulations? He becomes a high profile loanshark, of coarse! As president of the World Bank, he oversaw an organization that loans money to poor countries with all sorts of great strings attached, like making them privatize their drinking water, or stopping farming crops for their own people to eat to instead farm exports like coffee. You'd think loansharking and calling it charity would be a perfect job for a guy who would think that invading a country and killing a whole bunch of people for no reason would be a hugely successful venture. Doe it come as any surprise that this guy would manage to piss off everyone he worked with and break every ethics rule he could find? After weeks of revolt at the bank, Wolfy finally saw the writing on the wall and resigned. Of course, now the White House is looking for a quick replacement, despite the fact that after Wolfowitz, the bank board has pretty much lost faith in any kind of US leadership of the bank. I have the perfect idea for who the White House should put in there... Alberto Gonzoles! Why not Gonzo? Shouldn't a global loanshark be led by a supporter of torture? If these countries don't pay their loans, he'll send in troops to break some legs! Plus, his complete and total lack of anything even resembling ethics would make him the perfect representative of the Bush administration, and give a seamless transition from unethical Wolfowitz. Plus, it looks like he'll be needing a new job real soon.

GAS WAR - an idea that WILL work

This was forwarded to me this morning and it sounds like it could work if enough people do it. Even the right wingers can't argue with this one. Check it out... This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. It's worthy of your consideration. Join the resistance! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon by summer and it might possibly go higher! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea. This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the " don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around earlier! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to " hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us! By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace..... not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price o f gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war. Here's the idea: For the rest of 2007, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline fr om the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out at this point.... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people. I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us sends it to at least ten more (30 x 10 =3D 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!! Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am, so trust me on this one.) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you? Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN! Sounds good to me. Please email this, blog it, make fliers and hand them out at gas stations, whatever it takes.

Sinking to New and Exciting Depths

I can't believe I almost feel bad for John Ashcroft. That's right, I said it. I almost feel bad for the nude statue censoring, oil anointing, "with us or with the terrorists," losing his senate seat to a corpse former attorney general. Why, you ask? Well apparently the Bush administration had such a hardon for illegal wiretapping that they needed to send goons to visit Ashcroft in the Intensive Care Unit to pressure him into signing off on it. In hair-raising testimony before a Senate committee yesterday, Jim Comey, the former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, described what might be called the Wednesday Night Massacre of March 10, 2004. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card staged a bedside ambush of Attorney General John Ashcroft while he lay in intensive care. Comey, serving as acting attorney general during Ashcroft's incapacitation, testified about how, on a tip from Ashcroft's wife, he intercepted the pair in Ashcroft's hospital room. "The door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card," Comey told the spellbound senators. "They came over and stood by the bed." They wanted Ashcroft to sign off on an eavesdropping plan that Comey and others at the Justice Department had already called legally indefensible. [read more] The reason I only ALMOST feel bad for Ashcroft is that despite the fact that he knew this program was illegal as many of his underlings in the Justice Department had pointed out, and despite the fact that he almost resigned over it on the spot, he sat back and watched the administration pull off this illegal shit and did or said nothing about it, forever going down in history as one of the enablers of America's biggest shift toward fascism.

And Stay Dead!

I'm sure I'm going to hear about what an evil heartless liberal scum I am for saying this, but the world is a better place now that Jerry Falwell is no longer in it. This guy is the face of rabidly insane fundamentalist christian fascism in the USA. He's blamed the 9/11 attacks on gays and civil libertarians, and blamed hurricane Katrina on Ellen DeGeneres hosting the Oscars. Here are a few of Jerry's quotes: " If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being." "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!" "The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country." "AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals." You can read more of Jerry's wonderful quotes here, and then take this quiz to see if you could tell the difference between quotes by Jerry and his buddy Pat Robertson or Osama bin Laden.

How Many Sharks can Moshing Jump?

Growing up punk in the 80's, I remember the glory days of moshing. Back then, it was still called slam dancing and only punks did it. You'd dance and thrash around and bump into each other without really hurting anybody. Then speed metal started and there was a bit of crossover between fans of punk/hardcore and speed metal and the metal heads got in on slam dancing too, calling it moshing and adding an extra degree of violence to it. But then Metallica put out ...and Justice for All with their MTV hit One, and all of a sudden the jocks got interested in metal and started bringing their lame high school jock vibe into mosh pits, and mosh pits started popping up at just about every concert despite the genre. At Lollapalooza '94, the Beastie Boys wrote this guide in the program: EMERGENCY LIFESAVING TECHNIQUES - Mosh Pit Don't and Do's Presented by the Beastie Boys DON'TS 1. Don't Elbow, Kick, Punch, Thrash, Smash, Skank...or do any other dance that can only be performed at the expense of others. Respect all peoples, not just yourself! 2. Don't Float! Unless you're a certified waif* AND, as Bikini Kill fanzine reminds us, "Don't think that 'cuz you are in the pit that you can get away with grabbing girls' breasts or putting your hands down their pants or undoing their bras, etc., etc. A girl has as much right to mosh as anyone else and just 'cus she's slamming up against you doesn't mean she is in LOVE with you." 3. Don't Encourage Floating! Don't offer potential moshers a stirrup -- you're not a horse! Floating also leads to being passed over the barricade, which usually involves injury, ejection or humiliation at the hands of the authorities. 4. Don't Kick Up Dirt! Or tomorrow morning you'll have black boogers --plus it's wack! (This rule may not apply at arena shows but follow it anyway.) 5. Don't Taunt Security! They're only doing their job, so why don't you do the same and act like a homo sapien! 6. In Short, Don't Be A Knucklehead! Just because you're a jock, ex-jock, or would-be-jock doesn't mean that this is just another game. Save the macho bullshit for American Gladiators tryouts, tough guy. DO'S 1. Do Help People When They Scream "HELP!" Or Fall Down! Don't just stand there grinning like an idiot! Take charge of a bad situation, tell people to mellow out and help the disadvantaged party to their feet. Be Pro-Active --and not just in the pit! Don't let hassles happen anywhere on the premises. If you want hassles, take it to the Marines. 2. Do Something Constructive With Your Time & Life! Be creative within your own space. Don't infringe on other people's right to enjoy themselves. When the band starts to play, don't act like your mom's at a K-Mart sale and stampede the joint. Do yourself a favor and learn how to really dance a real dance step... A) Pogo B) Go-Go C) Smurf D) Breakdance E) All of the above. Back in the day, these rules were a given, but now that "alternative" music and culture are marketed to the masses, they need to be told what's up. And they were far more likely to listen to the Beasties than to Will Ferrel as Janet Reno yelling "no mosh pit" on SNL. Since then, people have died from being crushed in moshpits, and there was some serious ugliness in the pit at Woodstock '99. When I saw a minivan with a "MOSHPIT" vanity plate I felt like Don Henley seeing that deadhead sticker on a Cadillac. But for those kids out there who want to keep on moshing, there's this handy internet how-to.

What I Miss About the Early 90's

Ahhh, the good old days of the early 90's! I was just starting college, we had the whole northwest rock explosion, Lollapalooza, and oh yeah, we saw plenty of this guy on TV... While the whole story of a man's sleazy affair with a teenage girl which led to the teenage girl shooting the man's wife in the face was definitely the stuff that sells tabloids, I have to wonder if people would still be talking about it 15 years later if the man had a name that wasn't as fun to say as Joey Buttafuoco. I mean, if this all took place out in the midwest and Amy Fisher had shot Joey Smith's wife and nobody involved wore horrible guido pants or spoke in heavy Long Island accents, there would not have been three made for TV movies. So Joey and Amy are back (though did they ever really go away? They've both been in and out of jail and in and out of the press. Amy had a syndicated column, Joey got his ass kicked by Chyna on Celebrity Boxing, and they both sat down last year with Mary Jo and got interviewed about their whole tawdry story). Joey and some sleazebag TV producer announced on Howard Stern the other day that Joey and Amy, both freshly divorced, are going to be teaming up for a new reality show, and Joey was not ruling out the idea that the two of them might hook back up (download that entire Howard Stern show here). The entire gang on Howard were aghast at the idea of this, and that's coming from a group of people who routinely engage in teabagging, with and without pudding. This is by far the most exploitative, trashy, scummy thing that could ever be put on TV, but I think I will probably be glued to it.

Sharpton Does Romney a Big Favor

I think it's time that leaders of the democratic party and the African American community sat down with Al Sharpton and told him that it's time to just shut the hell up. The right has plenty of people who speak for them and are so loose with the truth and inflammatory that they are used by the other side as an easy argument against them. I've used the old "oh yeah but Ann Coulter said..." argument countless times. Al Sharpton is the Ann Coulter of the left (though slightly more attractive). After hearing him sanctimoniously making Don Imus squirm for telling a bad joke (while ignoring his long history of racism and other douchebaggery), it's now Al's turn to squirm and apologize. Oh wait, Al Sharpton doesn't apologize to anyone. Just ask Steven Pagones. Remember the Tawana Brawley fiasco? I do because I grew up two towns away from where all that went down. He dragged this one young prosecutor's name through the mud, calling him a rapist and a racist. Then it turned out that Tawana had lied and her family split to Virginia with her defense fund. Did Al apologize? Hell no! In fact, he voraciously defended his decision not to apologize. Jump ahead to 2004 and this race baiting shitbag hustler is on the podium of the Democratic convention, giving the right one huge opening to attack the democrats credibility. So what did Al do this time? In a debate on atheism and religious belief with Christopher Hitchens (don't even get me started on what a tool that guy is), he put his foot in his mouth again. “As for the one Mormon running for office,” Mr. Sharpton said, “those that really believe in God will defeat him anyway, so don’t worry about that. That’s a temporary situation.” Romney's campaign has been playing defensive on the Mormon issue since day one, and here comes Al Sharpton to play directly into that. Romney calls Sharpton a bigot, and then here comes the non-apology... Mr. Sharpton refused to back down in a telephone interview Wednesday, saying he had not implied that Mormons did not believe in God. Instead, he said, he had been responding specifically to a critique of religious belief in which Mr. Hitchens, referring to Mr. Romney and Mormonism, pointed out that one of the Republican presidential candidates was a member of a church that until the 1960s preached a “sons of Ham” doctrine that denied the equality of people of African descent. In a statement released by his office, Mr. Sharpton said: “In response to him I predicted that believers (not atheists) would vote against the candidate, in this case, Mr. Romney for political not religious reasons. In no way did I attack Mormons or the Mormon Church when I responded that other believers, not atheists, would vote against Mr. Romney for purely political reasons.” Granted, like any other religion, the Mormons have some ugly things in their past. Unfortunately for them, their past is pretty recent. They may not have had the crusades, but there was the Mountain Meadows Massacre. They may not have had a pedophile priest scandal, but they did preach polygamy for years And they might not have had a Spanish Inquisition, but they didn't allow blacks into the church until the 60's. Sharpton's statement made him sound just as bad as any evangelical wingnut out there saying the same thing. The fact is that religion is like big business and government combined. It's about money and power and control, only it's wrapped in a language of personal salvation. I don't want ANY MORE presidents who are overtly religious. I think that a person's religion is a highly personal and private matter and has no place in the public space out of respect for those who believe different things. Unfortunately, religion has become a huge public debate and a way for politicians to suck up to voters for reasons that have nothing to do with how they would lead. And while I'm obviously never going to vote for a republican, I'd take a moderate (though trying to appear less moderate to satisfy the goons in the base) Mormon over one of these loonie evangelicals any day. Oh, and as for Al Sharpton, let's all laugh at this video of him getting knocked on his ass on the Morton Downey Jr. Show!

Profiles in Asshattery or Only in New Jersey

By now you've all heard about the six Muslim rocket scientists who were caught while planning to attack Fort Dix. The levels of stupidity in their story is staggering. The way these imbeciles attracted the attention of the authorities was that they brought their home