the caffeine journals

I don't need your blessing...

2008-05-15T23:15:00.001-07:00

State supreme court judges are bad when they OK gay marriage, but good when they hand Presidential elections to the Republican party.

Sen. John McCain's campaign said the Arizona Republican "supports the right of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution sanctioning the union between a man and a woman."

McCain, who last week decried judicial activism, "doesn't believe judges should be making these decisions," a spokesman added.

Someone should tell the Rethuglicans that the judicial system is there to interpret the law, and if the law runs counter to the Constitution, it's their job to right that wrong. That doesn't make them "activist judges", that makes them GOOD judges.

And another thing. Justice Marvin Baxter, in a dissenting opinion said:

The court "does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice."

Two things:
1) Marriage, as we define it currently, is NOT the age-old definition, nor necessarily the same as other societies have understood it, nor should it be. Marriage in the past was used to trade family wealth, produce offspring to carry on the family name and to keep women as penniless, property-less possessions.

Since I am now allowed to keep my own cows should I choose to hetero-marry, I would say the definition of marriage has changed continuously throughout human history.

2) California was also the first state to allow interracial marriages in 1948, but I suppose we should stick with anti-miscegenation as the law of the land too, since that's how it was done before, right? Those damn notions of equality and justice. They just fuck everything up, don't they?

Ah, how I long for the day when we could just be assholes and keep being assholes, for no other reason than because we had been assholes for years. Tradition is important, you know...

Short term memory loss

2008-05-15T23:00:00.001-07:00

So it seems cameras may not steal the soul, but their ability to save past moments to watch years later certainly seems to cause a lot of problems for Republicans these days. Countless times we have seen Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and just about everyone else forget that they have been recorded saying things that, several years later, they completely contradict seemingly without a second thought.

Add John McCain to the list of Rethuglicans with a memory leak. In one of NUMEROUS blunders McCain has made in the last few weeks, McCain has smeared Obama for his willingness to talk to Hamas (and like them or not, they were elected into power by the people of Palestine). Lo and behold, McCain said he would do JUST THAT, on camera two years ago.

Chalk it up to another long line of things that McCain was for, but now is against. Maybe he's only against talking to Hamas on Thursdays? Does that mean on Friday he will decide to pull out of Iraq? Ooops. Probably not.

Seriously. I considered asking the rhetorical question of whether these guys believe their own bullshit, but then I remembered: THEY DON'T CARE! They know the mainstream media will eat up their lies and never bother to dig any deeper to find out the truth. And they believe the American people have 30 second commercial break memories and don't care about anything except celebrity weddings and Miley Cyrus photoshoots. Oh wait. Awkward.

Election 2008: Adam & Steve are enemies of the state.

2008-03-30T05:25:00.000-07:00

It's election time again, and once again, lily-livered Republican asswipes have decided to rile up Maw and Paw Bumfuck with the looming spectre of us fags and dykes taking the vows of matrimony.

You know what, assholes? FUCK YOU! Fuck you for once again putting all your hopes for re-election firmly on the backs of TAX PAYING GAY PEOPLE! You can't win an election based on doing anything even remotely useful, like making sure people have basic healthcare, or keeping our bridges from falling down. Nooooooo...you sniveling bastards have to raise the big fat fucking religious heterosexual flag to make sure that anyone who couples with someone having the same genitalia can't have any fucking rights.

Ya know, for a buncha fat fucks who talk ad infinitum (ad nauseum) about how fucking strong you are, I know a few limp-wristed, lovely faggots who could kick your asses around the block a time or two. You can't win with substance, so once again gay people become scarier than Osama Bin Laden ( that guy that Bush doesn't really worry about), so that you can continue your evil little power trip to the top of the political dung heap.

I think I am gonna take my little tax incentive you are giving us all, and buy heaps of gay pr0n.

Oh and did I mention: FUCK YOU?

Oh God...

2008-03-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

...no really.

Welcome to...wait for it...Christvertising.

What would Jesus buy?

FTC abandons net neutrality

2007-07-04T20:40:00.001-07:00

Kill em all, let the market sort em out.

Pfft.

*edit* AT&T rigs net neutrality study.

Surprise surprise.

le sigh

2007-06-06T03:03:00.001-07:00

it's been a minute since i last posted. so much political chaos that i could barely take the time to delve into writing about any of it. but i have made a promise to myself that i will be more diligent about posting, for the random passerby who may happen to read this.

for now i will just offer a link to keith olbermann's brilliant timeline of the war on terrah (a war on fear itself, how fucking ironic).

Keith Olbermann pwns the Bush administration.

2006-08-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

August 28, 2006
Real Wages Fail to Match a Rise in Productivity
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and DAVID LEONHARDT

With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.

That situation is adding to fears among Republicans that the economy will hurt vulnerable incumbents in this year’s midterm elections even though overall growth has been healthy for much of the last five years.

The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.

As a result, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as “the golden era of profitability.”

Until the last year, stagnating wages were somewhat offset by the rising value of benefits, especially health insurance, which caused overall compensation for most Americans to continue increasing. Since last summer, however, the value of workers’ benefits has also failed to keep pace with inflation, according to government data.

At the very top of the income spectrum, many workers have continued to receive raises that outpace inflation, and the gains have been large enough to keep average income and consumer spending rising.

In a speech on Friday, Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, did not specifically discuss wages, but he warned that the unequal distribution of the economy’s spoils could derail the trade liberalization of recent decades. Because recent economic changes “threaten the livelihoods of some workers and the profits of some firms,” Mr. Bernanke said, policy makers must try “to ensure that the benefits of global economic integration are sufficiently widely shared.”

Political analysts are divided over how much the wage trends will help Democrats this fall in their effort to take control of the House and, in a bigger stretch, the Senate. Some see parallels to watershed political years like 1980, 1992 and 1994, when wage growth fell behind inflation, party alignments shifted and dozens of incumbents were thrown out of office.

“It’s a dangerous time for any party to have control of the federal government — the presidency, the Senate and the House,” said Charles Cook, who publishes a nonpartisan political newsletter. “It all feeds into ‘it’s a time for a change’ sentiment. It’s a highly combustible mixture.”

But others say that war in Iraq and terrorism, not the economy, will dominate the campaign and that Democrats have yet to offer an economic vision that appeals to voters.

“National economic policies are more clearly in focus in presidential campaigns,” said Richard T. Curtin, director of the University of Michigan’s consumer surveys. “When you’re electing your local House members, you don’t debate that on those issues as much.”

Moreover, polls show that Americans are less dissatisfied with the economy than they were in the early 1980’s or early 90’s. Rising house and stock values have lifted the net worth of many families over the last few years, and interest rates remain fairly low.

But polls show that Americans disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the economy by wide margins and that anxiety about the future is growing. Earlier this month, the University of Michigan reported that consumer confidence had fallen sharply in recent months, with people’s expectations for the future now as downbeat as they were in 1992 and 1993, when the job market had not yet recovered from a recession.

“Some people who aren’t partisans say, ‘Yes, the economy’s pretty good, so why are people so agitated and anxious?’ ” said Frank Luntz, a Republican campaign consultant. “The answer is they don’t feel it in their weekly paychecks.”

But Mr. Luntz predicted that the economic mood would not do significant damage to Republicans this fall because voters blamed corporate America, not the government, for their problems.

Economists offer various reasons for the stagnation of wages. Although the economy continues to add jobs, global trade, immigration, layoffs and technology — as well as the insecurity caused by them — appear to have eroded workers’ bargaining power.

Trade unions are much weaker than they once were, while the buying power of the minimum wage is at a 50-year low. And health care is far more expensive than it was a decade ago, causing companies to spend more on benefits at the expense of wages.

Together, these forces have caused a growing share of the economy to go to companies instead of workers’ paychecks. In the first quarter of 2006, wages and salaries represented 45 percent of gross domestic product, down from almost 50 percent in the first quarter of 2001 and a record 53.6 percent in the first quarter of 1970, according to the Commerce Department. Each percentage point now equals about $132 billion.

Total employee compensation — wages plus benefits — has fared a little better. Its share was briefly lower than its current level of 56.1 percent in the mid-1990’s and otherwise has not been so low since 1966.

Over the last year, the value of employee benefits has risen only 3.4 percent, while inflation has exceeded 4 percent, according to the Labor Department.

In Europe and Japan, the profit share of economic output is also at or near record levels, noted Larry Hatheway, chief economist for UBS Investment Bank, who said that this highlighted the pressures of globalization on wages. Many Americans, be they apparel workers or software programmers, are facing more comptition from China and India.

In another recent report on the boom in profits, economists at Goldman Sachs wrote, “The most important contributor to higher profit margins over the past five years has been a decline in labor’s share of national income.” Low interest rates and the moderate cost of capital goods, like computers, have also played a role, though economists note that an economic slowdown could hurt profits in coming months.

For most of the last century, wages and productivity — the key measure of the economy’s efficiency — have risen together, increasing rapidly through the 1950’s and 60’s and far more slowly in the 1970’s and 80’s.

But in recent years, the productivity gains have continued while the pay increases have not kept up. Worker productivity rose 16.6 percent from 2000 to 2005, while total compensation for the median worker rose 7.2 percent, according to Labor Department statistics analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group. Benefits accounted for most of the increase.

“If I had to sum it up,” said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the institute, “it comes down to bargaining power and the lack of ability of many in the work force to claim their fair share of growth.”

Nominal wages have accelerated in the last year, but the spike in oil costs has eaten up the gains. Now the job market appears to be weakening, after a protracted series of interest-rate increases by the Federal Reserve.

Unless these trends reverse, the current expansion may lack even an extended period of modest wage growth like one that occurred in the mid-1980’s.

The most recent recession ended in late 2001. Hourly wages continued to rise in 2002 and peaked in early 2003, largely on the lingering strength of the 1990’s boom.

Average family income, adjusted for inflation, has continued to advance at a good clip, a fact Mr. Bush has cited when speaking about the economy. But these gains are a result mainly of increases at the top of the income spectrum that pull up the overall numbers. Even for workers at the 90th percentile of earners — making about $80,000 a year — inflation has outpaced their pay increases over the last three years, according to the Labor Department.

“There are two economies out there,” Mr. Cook, the political analyst, said. “One has been just white hot, going great guns. Those are the people who have benefited from globalization, technology, greater productivity and higher corporate earnings.

“And then there’s the working stiffs,’’ he added, “who just don’t feel like they’re getting ahead despite the fact that they’re working very hard. And there are a lot more people in that group than the other group.”

In 2004, the top 1 percent of earners — a group that includes many chief executives — received 11.2 percent of all wage income, up from 8.7 percent a decade earlier and less than 6 percent three decades ago, according to Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, economists who analyzed the tax data.

With the midterm campaign expected to heat up after Labor Day, Democrats are saying that they will help workers by making health care more affordable and lifting the minimum wage. Democrats have criticized Republicans for passing tax cuts mainly benefiting high-income families at a time when most families are failing to keep up.

Republicans counter that the tax cuts passed during Mr. Bush’s first term helped lifted the economy out of recession. Unless the cuts are extended, a move many Democrats oppose, the economy will suffer, and so will wages, Republicans say.

But in a sign that Republicans may be growing concerned about the public’s mood, the new Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., adopted a somewhat different tone from Mr. Bush in his first major speech, delivered early this month.

“Many aren’t seeing significant increases in their take-home pay,” Mr. Paulson said. “Their increases in wages are being eaten up by high energy prices and rising health care costs, among others.”

At the same time, he said that the Bush administration was not responsible for the situation, pointing out that inequality had been increasing for many years. “It is neither fair nor useful,” Mr. Paulson said, “to blame any political party.”

So I was right...it DOESN'T take an economist to know all this talk of "economic growth" has nothing to do with the majority of people. Hell, I have been saying this all along. All it took was a look at my paychecks and the grim faces of people filling their gas tanks or opening their heating bills.

Basically, what I have said all along was that "economic growth" was a term referring to the growing wealth of those with too much money in the first place. A "healthy economy" is a catchphrase for "the rich are getting richer". For the rest of it, it means absolutely NOTHING.

Welcome to the richest country in the world, where more and more people slip into desperation and poverty, where George W. Bush talks about Trent Lott's porch, while the majority work harder and harder for less and less.

Ugh.

the greenwashing continues...

2006-03-28T22:49:00.000-08:00

...only it looks...errr...suspiciously dirty all the same.

An Iowa corn refinery, open since December, uses 300 tons of coal a day to make ethanol. So just how green can it be?

All those lovely commercials with people talking about how great ethanol is start to look decidedly like...bullshit.

When we can power our cars with that, we will have fuel forever...

who is gonna save us?

2006-03-05T16:19:00.000-08:00

We are. Together.

Bend over, take it and like it, America!

2006-02-22T09:21:00.000-08:00

David Sirota breaks down the motives behind handing over essential US port functions to the United Arab Emirates.

Ugh. It's been obvious for a while that our administration are the lackeys of corporate culture, but this REALLY takes the cake.

I wish Bush would at least buy us all dinner before FUCKING US ROYALLY.

You can destroy a country, but never shoot a campaign contributor

2006-02-16T09:36:00.000-08:00

Veep Dick Cheney on the shooting of his hunting partner:

"The image of him falling is something I will never be able to get out my mind," Cheney said, somberly. "It was one of the worst days of my life."

Perhaps he should see some videos of soldiers falling.

Or Afghanis. Or Iraqis.

I think this shooting is the least of Cheney's karmic worries.

War is brutal...duh.

2006-02-16T09:06:00.000-08:00

Over there:
Video of British soldiers beating young Iraqi boys.

Be forewarned. This footage is EXTREMELY disturbing.

The British government has said that most soldiers do not engage in behavior like this, and while that may be true, one thing has to be said. War can make beasts out of men, and this war is no exception.

When you are given weapons and free reign to use your power, brutality becomes a reality. War can turn good, honest people into brutal monsters. That is the nature of war, and no statements to the contrary can make that any less true. War teaches people to hate; how else could you brutalize and shoot people? It is dehumanizing and wrong. Period.

Videos like this one, and the pictures we have seen from Abu Ghraib just prove the point. Even if it is only a handful of people that get caught, dehumanizing an entire people results in untold brutalities toward them.

We have seen it in every war. Every war. Did we really think this one would be any different?

At home:
There are many studies showing a link between violence and sexual pleasure. Just one listen to the "narrator" of this video goes a long way in reinforcing that evidence. He literally sounds like he is getting off on the beatings. Is THIS what we want coming back from war? Soldiers who have linked violence to sexual pleasure and now are expected to "re-civilize" themselves? There is a great book by John Nichols called "American Blood" that illustrates this point vividly, using the Vietnam War as an example.

From increased domestic violence to increased sexual abuse committed by soldiers returning from war, the stories are many and tragic. We teach people to brutalize and kill while at war, and they apply those lessons learned when they return home as well.

This is a tragedy that affects not only those traumatized in wartorn countries (our own soldiers as well as the people in those countries), it affects those of us on the homefront as well. Some examples:

Post Traumatic Shock:
Violence in Military Families Goes Untreated
The Connection Between Militarism and Violence Against Women
Atrocities Abroad, Violence at Home

This war and warmongering must stop. Our planet literally depends on it.

2006-02-14T20:53:00.000-08:00

Exxon energy exec says the US will never be free of our oil habit.

No really. We can't do it.

It's just impossible.

Why do I feel that way? Well...just...ummm...because...

Is there a conflict of interest? Of course not! I would never say these things out of blatant self-interest. I am simply saying that it is impossible!

"Americans depend upon imports to fill the gap," McGill said. "No combination of conservation measures, alternative energy sources and technological advances could realistically and economically provide a way to completely replace those imports in the short or medium term."

Instead of trying to achieve energy independence, importing nations like the U.S. should be promoting energy interdependence, McGill said.

Now the reason I say that no combination of conservation measures, alternative energy sources and technological advances could work is because...well...I'm not gonna let 'em work. Again, no conflict of interest, I just know they won't work. Because I won't let them.

It has NOTHING to do with record profits, it's just not feasible. What? Sweden's doing what?!?!

*pulls George Bush aside* (whisper) Bomb Sweden next, please.

Ahem. Really. There's no way this would work.

lazy post day

2006-02-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

So...just some links of really good stories to read. Analysis? Perhaps later (I did say it was a lazy post day).

War war war fear fear fear don't look at the job loss terror terror terror!

How much did YOUR free country spend on propaganda?

Murray Wass digs DEEP into what was known about Iraq and the *non* connections to Al Qaeda waaaaay back in September 2001.

Bloggers are terrorists, evidently.

The debate over the blogosphere and "progressive action"

2006-02-13T22:12:00.000-08:00

Can Blogs Revolutionize Progressive Politics?

While the organic growth of the blogosphere may resolve issues of race and gender over time, it will do little to address its overwhelming bias toward urban professionals. And that can’t be good news for a party that is already being punished at the polls for its weak connection to working-class Americans.

“For me the greatest problem is low-income people,” Cornfield says. “The irony is that it’s not because they don’t have money to get a laptop—especially with the $100 laptop now. It’s that people who are poor don’t have the civic skill sets and motivation to go online and do these sorts of things. That will take a concerted effort.”

At a time when the visible digital divide may be shrinking as increasing numbers of Americans come online, it may be replaced by an invisible version that benefits those who are well-educated, well-connected and organized.

Stoller does not think that it’s important for blogs to reach a less-affluent audience: “Not everybody has to be part of that conversation. If someone wants to have access to those discussions, they should be able to do that. But for the most part, people—like that person working two shifts—will go on with their lives knowing that good people are making good decisions and policies on their behalf.” Bloggers like Moulitsas—who is equally unconcerned that his blog will never reach “someone working at the DMV”—are likely betting that the cadre of activists they reach will be able to form connections across those differences within their community.

Stoller...well...his attitude barely deserves a reply. *Sigh*. I shall forge on nonetheless. "But for the most part, people—like that person working two shifts—will go on with their lives knowing that good people are making good decisions and policies on their behalf."

Oh...I feel SO much better. What would I do without my blogger saviour to make decisions for me? Frankly, there is no difference between this jerk's elitist BS and an entire system that wants us to believe we are too stupid to make our own decisions (hence: "representative democracy"). In fact, I dare say it reeks of patriarchal colonialism: the idea that the poor and the oppressed can't realize their own freedoms; that they all need a smarter, WHITER hero archetype to swoop down and save them.

Hmmm...that sounds...faintly...familiar.

White Europeans civilizing "savages". The British in India, French in Algeria, the US stopping communism from spreading amongst yellow people who didn't know enough to make their own decisions, and...oh looky! The big caring US has to bomb the brown Iraqis to give them the freedom they were just too unsophisticated enough to pursue of their own volition.

Wow. What would oppressed people do without their white people to make their decisions for them?

Guess what Stoller...no one needs your shining bright American white boy mouth (or keyboard) to make decisions for them. Your politics may carry the progressive label, but your actions speak volumes about how entrenched colonial arrogance still is.

I'll let you in on something you probably don't realize: the poor don't want to jump into the pit of political punditry because they understand that people like you use their issues as a stepping stone to power, without ever giving two shits about them as humans. So, as it turns out, the poor people whom you cast as simpletons in need of your leadership...they are smart enough to know bullshit when they see it. So they organize on the ground, with people who identify with them instead of people who look down on them as if they were idiotic children.

And THAT is why Democrats and superficial "progressives" will keep losing. Until resistance takes place in your heart, and not just your words...what you say will be just so many ones and zeros..."full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

a much needed laugh

2006-02-13T21:36:00.000-08:00

Visual hunting aid for vice presidential hunting trips

random political tidbits for the day

2006-02-10T22:16:00.000-08:00

Bob Barr, the guy who managed the Clinton Impeachment, tells fellow conservatives that the debate over the presidential power grab and NSA spying is "a debate about whether or not we will remain a nation subject to and governed by the rule of law or the whim of men." He gets booed by his own people. Go figure.

And this on the Washington Post's front page. The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year says that the Bush administration pushed the war on Iraq with faulty information, and with the intent of "making a case" for war instead of critically interpreting the data.

The Bush administration, Pillar wrote, "repeatedly called on the intelligence community to uncover more material that would contribute to the case for war," including information on the "supposed connection" between Hussein and al Qaeda, which analysts had discounted. "Feeding the administration's voracious appetite for material on the Saddam-al Qaeda link consumed an enormous amount of time and attention."

More news: NOLA mayor Ray Nagin reaching out to other countries to aid in the rebuilding of the Big Easy, since Bush seems to have forgotten his promises.

And why do we need Venezualan president Hugo Chavez to help the American poor heat their homes? Because our own country doesn't give a shit. Granted, its probably a political move for Chavez, but it will do more good than anything the Bush administration has come up with so far.

To round it all out, the Grammys had Bono and Kanye West attending, so who finally goes and makes a direct political statement? Well, Springsteen made a "bring 'em home" blurb at the end of a song, but actually it was Burt frickin' Bacharach, who made the most to-the-point political assessment, albeit not one that made the broadcast (go figger). Here ya have it:

"At one time, if the president had just gotten up and said 'I made a mistake, I take full blame for it. There are no weapons of mass destruction. Bear with me, and we'll get this together."' said Bacharach, "I never like to be lied to by a girlfriend or an agent and certainly not by the president of the United States."

Just in case anyone has forgotten...

2006-02-10T21:49:00.000-08:00

...or in case some of us are too young to have been around when it happened, the US government LIED to the American people to gain support for bombing Vietnam.

Nearly three decades later, during the Gulf War, columnist Sydney Schanberg warned journalists not to forget "our unquestioning chorus of agreeability when Lyndon Johnson bamboozled us with his fabrication of the Gulf of Tonkin incident."

Schanberg blamed not only the press but also "the apparent amnesia of the wider American public."

And he added: "We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth."

History just repeats itself, and the American memory (and knowledge of history) is so thin that we just buy the lies, over and over and over again.

It is said that truth is the first casualty of war, and each war that the American government has perpetuated to further their own economic interests throughout the world has been no stranger to this precept.

There is documented evidence that the attack on Pearl Harbor could have been avoided. Yet it happened, and we went to war.

There is documented evidence that the attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin were fiction, and yet we went to war.

There is documented evidence that the reasons for going to war in Iraq were false and deliberately misleading, yet here we are.

It is a difficult concept to stomach: that your government does not have your best interests in mind, only the pursuit of more power and widened influence throughout the world. And they are willing to use you, your sons, your daughters, husbands and wives...

People are nothing more than cannon fodder to shore up these conflicts and entrench the US as THE superpower throughout the world.

But that's just too much isn't it?

To acknowledge these truths is to acknowledge our own complicity. To acknowledge our own complicity would mean that perhaps we would have to rise up out of our comfort zones, out of this morass of consumer myopia...and actually do something about it.

So instead we drown ourselves in reality tv, iPods, celebrity marriages and personal drama, because it's just easier than taking a stand at the expense of our comfort.

But...our comfort comes at great expense. Blood on our hands, blood in our tanks, and death on our souls.

I, for one, would rather fight to uncover the truth. The truth IS ugly, but ignorance is never bliss. Rather, it is the stifling silence that, quite literally, kills.

But if you listen closely, the silence is being broken. Whispers of dissent are breaking through, and let me be just one of the voices adding to the growing sound...

...the sound of resistance.

is there no end to the subterfuge?

2006-02-10T01:35:00.000-08:00

The sneaky shrub hasn't given up on his rather idiotic social security plan.

What's the best way to get around the rather heated social security debate?

Sneak it into the budget with a gerbajillion other really fucking stupid ideas.

AAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!

*plugs ears* lalalalalalalalalalalalala...

cuz we do it so well here...

2006-02-09T10:16:00.000-08:00

US sets up new Iraqi prison system.

One U.S. prison expert questioned whether the U.S. prison system offered the best model for Iraq to follow.

"I would have liked them to take a look at the practices of some of the European countries where they have an independent prison inspectorate, or Canada. The U.S. model is not exactly the best," said Jenni Gainsborough of Penal Reform International, which promotes cooperation between governments and non-governmental organizations to promote good prisons.

The U.S. prison and jail system, with around 2.2 million inmates, accounts for a quarter of all the world's prisoners. Reports of violence, rape, abuse and medical neglect regularly emerge from the system.

We can teach the Iraqis about more humane treatment like the "we care chair".

Yeah, we will be a "civilizing" influence, I'm sure. *double snort*

it didn't happen, so it MUST be us that stopped it, right?

2006-02-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

Bush Says Cooperation Thwarted 2002 Attack

No details. Of course. But since nothing has happened, that must mean that we did it! We did it! Don't let those nasty civil liberties types tell you any differently!

Ok ok. So our nuclear power plants and ports still are not secure, and our police and fire departments (first responders, don't forget!) are still having their funding cut, but we really really really wanna stop terrorism...really we do. And look! We did it!

What's that? You say we are encouraging terrorism by invading Arab countries and killing children? What're you, some kinda America-hater?

Geez...only America haters use LOGIC when talking about this stuff. Cuz you know, bombing innocents or FLYING PLANES INTO BUILDINGS TO KILL INNOCENTS...that doesn't piss people off. Not one bit...

Logic be damned...

wow.

2006-02-08T23:28:00.000-08:00

Tension Rises Over Cartoons of Muhammad

In a country where evangelical christians FREAK OUT about Britney Spears Christian character on "Will & Grace" making "cruci-fixin's", it's not really that hard to understand the furor over this.

I kinda have to agree with this guy, Mahmoud Hashem:

"Anybody who wants to get some press uses Muslims as a punching bag."

His method of protest: calling for a boycott of Danish products (so much for the view that ALL Muslims are bombthrowing freakies).

I personally found the cartoon in question to be incredibly racist, painting Arabic Muslims with the wide brush of "terrorist" and stoking the fires of conflict between Western culture and Islamic culture. Not a smart move in a world where cultural differences can lead to such incendiary reactions.

And while I support freedom of speech, I also believe wholeheartedly in taking responsibility for what you put out into the world, and understanding the possible implications of your actions before putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys...whichever).

That said, does anyone else feel like the world is going freakin' insane?

really now.

2006-02-08T23:10:00.000-08:00

House Committee Squashes Torture Queries

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans easily defeated three resolutions seeking information about the Bush administration's policies on torture after a heated committee hearing.

Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said Democrats who submitted the resolutions should "at least silently confess to themselves that their actions pose real dangers to our country."

Hyde accused Democrats of playing politics, with an eye on November's congressional elections, by offering the three resolutions demanding:

-Information on a practice that has been called extraordinary rendition, or sending suspects abroad to countries where they would allegedly be tortured for information.

-Documents about U.S. policies regarding U.N. anti-torture conventions.

-Documents and records involving Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's December trip to Europe, during which she was dogged by reports of alleged secret European jails.

All three proposed resolutions were defeated on almost straight party-line votes.

The committee's senior Democrat, Rep. Tom Lantos of California, denied Hyde's accusations of partisan motivation.

and here i thought that condoning frickin' TORTURE posed real dangers to our country.

silly me. such a "quaint" notion, not wanting to become a nation of monsters.
now i see the error of my ways, i was really just "playing politics", not being HUMAN.

*snort*

Federal budget squeeze

2006-02-08T09:28:00.000-08:00

Read the breakdown of who gets what and who gets cut.

I will address a few of these later on this evening, but this one is very interesting to me.

The department budget is essentially flat; the president's budget shows a modest increase of $20 million to nearly $23.6 billion, but the agency says it is actually a decrease of $6 million from fiscal 2006. Included is $250 million to fund a global nuclear energy program that the administration hopes will lead to the expansion of nuclear power production domestically and abroad. The department called yesterday for the development of technology to recycle nuclear fuel and create waste that is less hazardous and more difficult to use in weapons.

The budget adds money to research some alternative fuel technology. Environmental groups said the funding increases are insufficient.

Some programs designed to increase energy efficiency would be cut, as would research money for hydropower and geothermal energy. The spending plan cuts funding for oil and natural gas research programs. The administration, which sought unsuccessfully to cut the programs last year, said the industry can afford to pursue the research on its own given high oil and natural gas prices.

So the State of the Onion hoohah about renewable energy was a bunch of BS, which we all knew it to be.

Not only that, but Bush wants to rebuild a nuclear program that was a failure to begin with. A little research will show that recycling nuclear fuel was a miserable attempt the first time, merely irradiating buildings and proving completely inefficient. Plutonium reprocessing plants were closed years ago because of this, but we just never learn, do we?

We have built up tons of used nuclear fuel rods that at this point are sitting in cooling pools, because there is NO FRICKIN' WAY to dispose of them. The best idea this country has come up with is to transport high level nuke waste across the country and dump it in Yucca Mountain Nevada, an area with high levels of seismic activity. Smrt. Really.

Nuke plants across the country have repeatedly failed safety inspections, had regulations cut so that they had less stringent safety regulations in the first place, and well...do I have to mention Three Mile Island?

For even more fun nuclear reading, grab a copy of We Almost Lost Detroit, a description of an accident at the Fermi reactor outside of the Motor City.

There are plenty of people who would contest my anti-nuke reasoning, but consider this: it's the most expensive way we have come up with boil water, and the only water-boiling method with that much destructive power. And it's NOT pollution free, no matter how many ways they try to say it is.

We are insane if we think that we can keep a handle on this mess. Actually, it's Bush who's insane. I am feeling pretty on point, really.

this is pathetic

2006-02-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

Over 4500 Katrina evacuees evicted from hotel rooms across the country.

Yeah. We take care of our own my ass. When many people protested, they were threatened with arrest. Many people are still waiting for promised FEMA trailers. Katrina was a disaster. The treatment of evacuees after the fact is a monstrosity.

We've got money to bomb the crap out of brown people the world over, but we can't manage to help people right here in our own country.

Disgusting.

so i'm a little late in putting this up here...

2006-02-07T22:07:00.000-08:00

...but I found pictures!

Georgetown law students turn their backs on Alberto Gonzalez as he justifies spying on Americans without a warrant.

...and here we have some details, which includes the rather amusing anecdote of two of the women who turned their backs having "Tap this!" written on the butt of their pants.

Nice...

oh fucking hell...

2006-02-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

Soldier expected to reimburse the US military for body armor damaged WHEN HE WAS CAUGHT IN A ROADSIDE BOMBING!

oh the hypocrisy

2006-02-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

New Federal budget calls for more money for defense and cuts to social programs.

(More info here.)

If that's not predictable, I don't know what is.

"Nearly $9 billion in cuts over the next ten years are being proposed for agriculture, including changes to dairy programs, crop payments and marketing loans," said Kansas GOP Rep. Jerry Moran, who drew no Democratic opponent in winning a fifth term in 2004. "These proposed cuts to agriculture do not come at a good time."

"I am disappointed and even surprised that this budget instead cuts $48 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over the next five years," added Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, whose race has not yet drawn significant attention from Democrats.

Those cuts, with this reasoning from Bush:

"Unconstrained spending in the nation's large entitlement programs poses a serious threat to the federal budget and to the health of the economy."

Uh...no. Unconstrained spending on a useless war, tax cuts for the rich, increasing the tax burden on the middle class and undermining programs for the poorest Americans poses a serious threat to the federal budget and to the health of the economy. And you don't have to be an economist to figure that one out.

I am less afraid of terrorism than I am of watching our country topple over from its top-heaviness. Dirty bombs don't freak me out; not being able to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly freaks me out. Osama bin Laden scares me less than a major illness hitting right now when I have no insurance OR my teeth continuing to rot out of my head.

My conclusion: these people are just simply INSANE. Reverse Robin Hoods that steal from the poor and give to the rich. Corporate shills doing the bidding of the wealthiest and leaving the rest of us to rot. And I don't exclude the Dems from this, regardless of the (mostly) party line split regarding the budget. Their continual unwillingness to really get to the meat of the matter (while continuing to take corporate money), and rolling over for Bush in the last five years has not done us any good either. Clinton did his damages too.

The whole system is functioning to line the pockets of the rich and powerful, and stomping the poor into the dirt.

If I had the power to toss them all out on their asses, I would do it willingly.

Power run amok is a threat to us all. Oops...uh...yeah...the TERRORISTS are really scary. Yeah...that's it. Really.

tapping the american vein for a fix

2006-02-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

We all knew the promises to break America's oil addiction were disingenuous hoohah, but it still rankles to hear them admit straight-up that it's all bullshit.

What? I mean the guy doesn't even write his own speeches. Didn't someone proofread it first?

*sigh*

It would be laughable if it weren't just a pack of bold-faced lies told right to our collective face.

If someone I knew personally talked as much smack as George does, I would kick them in their shins. Really.

the biggest problem with the war on terrorism

2006-02-05T21:01:00.000-08:00

As if it could really be narrowed down to one problem. But, really. Situations like the missile attack that killed innocent Pakistanis, but was said to be targeted at Ayman Zawahiri, Al Qaida's No. 2 honcho, truly show one of the biggest flaws in logic of this whole shebang.

It's a tactic that's been used by the Israelis for years. You suspect there may be a terrorist in this apartment complex. SO, instead of sending in special forces to extricate the guy, you BOMB THE WHOLE APARTMENT BUILDING?!?!?! It's like performing brain surgery with a rocket launcher...damn messy, and after all the pieces are picked up, it doesn't matter if you got the tumor or not. Everything surrounding the tumor (like, ummm...the patient)is dead dead dead.

Just be glad our domestic law enforcement hasn't picked up on this brilliant tactic yet. Otherwise, that guy next door dealing pot to his buddies may be the death of you.

So why do attacks like this continue with little to no remorse from our administration? Because it's not about getting Zawahiri, or any of the terrorists. It is about creating fear and bullying not just Iraqis, but neighboring countries as well. It is, dare I say it, the very definition of terrorism. If you don't believe me, check the dictionary:

terrorism

n : the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear

This administration, for all its talk about values and morals, still has no high ground to stand on. And no amount of rhetoric and shoving the media full of their crass psuedo-patriotic horse hockey will change that.

Liberation my ass...

oh thank the universe...

2006-02-05T20:54:00.001-08:00

...there's hope for us humans yet.

Interviews with 17-year old schoolkids that have a better grasp on American politics than our politicians seem to.

***drifts off into verses of "I believe the children are our future..."***

Oh wait. Isn't the next line "teach them well and let them lead the way"?
Oh. Well, screw their school funding. They may be smart little whippersnappers, but really...service industry work is VERY fulfilling. They'll get used to it.

certainly says something about the mentality of law enforcement

2006-02-05T13:57:00.000-08:00

The suspect in the violence at a Massachussetts gay bar is dead from wounds suffered in a gun battle with police.

The most telling part of CNN's report was this little blurb at the bottom:

Robida's neighbors have described him as a racist, who decorated his room with swastikas. Robida is a graduate of New Bedford's junior police academy, a program intended to build social skills, self-esteem and self-confidence in children 12 to 14, police said.

Sending a messed up kid to police academy to teach him social skills is somewhat akin to telling a military recruit that he will learn sensitivity along with his weapons skills. There is this idea that sending troubled kids into military/police programs will turn them around, and perhaps it works for some. But instead of delving into the roots of the kids' problems, we send them off to boot camps, and junior police programs, and then we wonder why police brutality or torture by military personnel is so rampant.

Now I am not saying every policeperson or soldier is a formerly troubled teen (well, we all have been, just maybe not to the extent of Jacob Robida), but when our method of dealing with these kids revolves around authoritarian discipline, what we risk creating is a kid who behaves on the surface (because of cohercion), but simmers underneath with their own need to possess that same kind of authoritarian power that has been lorded over them in the interests of discipline.

I guess delving into some psychoanalysis of power dynamics in law enforcement training would be a rather dry and long-winded topic, but I can't help but feel a sense of sadness that the ways we deal with troubled kids are to send them into authoritarian organizations that further emphasize their powerlessness and their need to regain power with similar violent means.

And sadly, I don't think anyone in these fields is exempt from being indoctrinated with these skewed power dynamics, troubled or not. Humans are fallible, and handing them the psychological means to justify their own brutality will not increase their social skills, but rather separate them from the very people they are ostensibly there to protect.

abandon all idiocy...all ye who enter here

2006-02-04T22:44:00.000-08:00

Ahhh...the State of the Union...

A prime opportunity to play drinking games, tossing back a mouthful of hops whenever the ubiquitous words "terrorists", "freedom", "enemies" and "nucular" passed through the tinny speakers of the tv. The only way to temper the gag reflex was to continue the swilling.

Sometimes you just have to marvel at the hypocrisy, and none so blatant as King George uttering the names of Martin Luther AND Coretta Scott King, and then going on to compare his administration's actions to MLK and Lincoln all at the same time.

Now, call me nitpicky, but set aside the obvious Orwellian doublespeak sprinkled throughout the speech. Forget about the references to "America's oil addiction" from a failed oilman who's cozied up to so many big oilmen that he bleeds crude. Forget about the hypocrisy of referencing the need for better education a day before education budgets were slashed. I could go on, but do I really need to?

Push all that to the back of your mind and ask yourself...did Lincoln have speechwriters? What does it say about the "leader" of the free world that he cannot speak for himself without a veritable army of pundits, pollsters, speechwriters and campaign strategists to write the words for him?

Now, call me an idealist (go ahead...I don't mind), but I think someone with that much power should at least be able to express themselves without help. I know, I know...you're thinking "If they let Bush write his own speeches, no one would know what the hell he was talking about!" And you're right. And isn't that one of the most telling factors in politics?

We don't elect presidents. We elect public relations firms, and well paid pollsters who tell politicians what to say and how to say it. We elect propaganda machines to tell us what they think we need to hear, without ever really telling us anything.

Bush's SOTU had the frilly wrappings of well-heeled college graduate speechwriter platitudes, dressed up in a smirk, with the substance of a Twinkie.

When I competed in poetry slams, sometimes it came down to a final round, all dependent upon one's ability to improvise. I have had moments of brilliance, and terrible block where I couldn't come up with anything worthwhile. But it was all me.

And my daddy didn't even get me into college.