Brain Immaturity
may explain why teens have a lot more car crashes than the general population according to a new study.
It doesn't surprise me. Teens and people in their early twenties do a lot of stupid risk-taking behavior which the rest of the population wouldn't consider doing.
Monday, January 31, 2005
Oh,
and you better notice what the fuckers want for health care: absolutely WORTHLESS health savings accounts, which they want to replace traditional employer-paid health care with.
People are going to fucking die when it is all said and done.
The Republicans really are on a spiral to certain extinction with this kind of shit.
Oh, and don't forget the little known idea of employment accounts, which you know they want to have to undercut unemployment insurance.
As Long
as we have a government run by and for fascists, any notion of any return of the Fairness Doctrine is pure nonsense.
What's the point quoting a Cato Institute asshole who doesn't believe in "government" at all? The guy's a total moron.
The Fairness Doctrine is not unconstitutional. Fucking right-wing propaganda with NO balance is clearly undemocratic.
Not that these fuckers care because they don't believe in democracy.
Naturally,
evolution is taking a backseat in many classrooms in the United States, thanks to politicization of the issue by fundamentalist whackjobs whose fragile belief system would fall apart if science were actually taught to their kids.
It's not the best thing to quote a right-wing outfit like the Fordham Foundation in this article. They aren't credible about anything.
In the End,
Paul, the hoaxers pushing privatization of Social Security don't give a rat's ass about the return rate on investing in stocks versus Social Security.
It's all a smokescreen, all bullshit.
They just don't want "their" tax money going to pay for old people, the disabled, and widows and their kids.
People who are in dire straits deserve it. It's God's will.
Let 'em die.
And the truth really needs to be told about these assholes. We shouldn't even bother to "engage" them on these phony little sidebars.
These nutjobs just don't believe in government helping people who aren't rich or aren't corporations. Period.
Now
that Wellington Webb has dropped out of the running, the race for the DNC chairmanship is down to its final stage, reports Ronald Brownstein.
Welcome
to fascism:
Charging that an IRS audit was "motivated by partisan politics," NAACP Chairman Julian Bond announced Monday that the civil rights group would not comply with the federal probe alleging Bond had inappropriately intervened in the presidential campaign by criticizing President Bush.
"We are prepared to fight," Bond said Monday.
Attorneys for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sent a letter Friday to the Internal Revenue Service in response to a summons sent to the organization, dated Jan. 13.
The IRS requested documents for the investigation into the group's tax-exempt status.
It's not nice to cross the dictator.
As the World Turns 2.
Two paramedics had their credentials suspended after an investigation into the Larry D. Green case.
Green, you recall, was the pedestrian who was struck by a car and was declared dead by paramedics, but he was found to be alive and breathing two hours later when he was in the morgue.
Quote of the Day. "I can't give you all the answers you want, but I can apologize."--Ray Brent Marsh, apologizing to families in a case which stunk to high heaven. (Ric Feld, AP)
People
who care about the status of women in this country should be very concerned about the campaign against "no-fault" divorce.
Trust me, this has nothing to do with "preserving marriage" but everything to do with preserving the old male privilege in marriages.
The Website
The Raw Story has a pdf file of the fascists' propaganda playbook on how they should "sell" "personal accounts" to a skeptical public.
Disgusting.
Michael Ross
received yet another stay of execution today:
The stay allows the current death warrant to expire on Tuesday. The court sent the case back to New London Superior Court. A new death warrant would set Ross' execution date for no earlier than March, although lawyers in the case believe appeals could stretch much longer.
I agree with the lawyer from the article from yesterday who said this is as good an argument against the death penalty as any. As horrible a person as he is, Ross should have been sentenced to life without parole, and that would have been the end of it.
It's like Priscilla Ford, the insane killer who mowed down people on South Virginia Street in 1980 and killed 6 and injured 23. She was sentenced to "death," but neither the defense nor the prosecution thought she would ever be executed. Her case was still being appealed when she finally died, at age 75, after almost a quarter century on death row.
The death penalty is if nothing else absurd.
Editor & Publisher
had a report about this rather disturbing survey of high school students who apparently have little understanding of the First Amendment.
Snips:
Nearly three-fourths of high school students either do not know how they feel about the First Amendment or admit they take it for granted.
Seventy-five percent erroneously think flag burning is illegal.
Half believe the government can censor the Internet.
More than a third think the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.
Furthermore, more than 1 in 3 students want the government to control the press.
Well, I think in large part they already do.
As the World Turns.
It appears the Washington Post, including columnist/reporter Howard Kurtz, takes a bit of an issue with Maggie Gallagher's contention the paper issued a "retraction."
Nope.
The San Francisco Chronicle has a piece today about Lawrence Summers' idiotic remarks about women and the sciences and also about research into just why there are "differences" between the sexes in that realm.
Evidently
talking about the dictator's proposal to abolish Social Security made Hillary Clinton sick to her stomach.
Either that or "they" tried to knock off the opposition and failed.
Masherama.
Arnold threatens to really fuck up California, as this year could be seen as a milestone to extremism.
How clever of Rove, Norquist, and the rest of the human filth in D.C., who plotted to have Gray Davis removed, using a surrogate (Issa) to do the dirty work, and then pushed an ACTOR with no political experience at all to run for the governorship ala Reagan. The fact this guy is a big-name actor innoculates him from ANY outcry from the public apart from liberals and Democrats while he pushes through an almost identical agenda as is being pushed by the dictator in Washington.
Bush, as awful as he is, gets hit with a LOT of shit, whereas Arnold gets mostly a pass in California.
It was genius having him run for Davis's job, for it guarantees people will NOT remove him and will likely re-elect him. He's a star, after all, and stars simply aren't pushed around and act like fascistic puppets of those who are REALLY running the show, despite facts to the contrary.
It's the fact he ran knowing this, and Maria Shriver went along with it, is why I will never forgive either of them for doing such damage to the state and to the democratic system of politics.
This editorial fucking pissed me off.
Some fucking moron in the state legislature is proposing a constitutional amendment which would require ALL teachers to work TEN YEARS before they could receive what is called "tenure." There is NO job ANYWHERE in the country which requires people to work TEN YEARS at a job before people are "guaranteed" employment.
And shithead Schwarzenegger thinks this is a good idea.
For crying out loud, teachers in California go through so many hoops just to get certified in the state, and if this moron actually gets this legislation passed, they will quit in droves. And many, many more won't bother to relocate to California.
People don't even understand what "tenure" is anyway. It's NOT lifetime employment; I should know. I received "post-probationary" status on my teaching job, but since it was a one-year contract, it didn't matter because my job was eliminated. When--hopefully not if--I am hired again in Nevada, I won't have to go through the whole evaluation process, which is a pain in the ass, but I still will have to be evaluated annually, just like almost any other employee in any other occupation.
All tenure is is the right of a person to have a hearing in the event the person is fired. That's it. It's insurance against firing at whim, and, when it comes to teaching, it's absolutely essential there be a stable work environment for the students.
Howard Kurtz
provides media yammering about the Iraq "elections."
He also has some inside-baseball stuff about backstage media shenanigans, for those who give a damn about such things.
I don't.
Kurtz Kount: Kurtz 40, C&P 31.
And that's it till later today.
Usually
when there's another administration, proposals might tick a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right, but with this administration, its extremism is way off the charts.
Its hatred for the poor and working people, all because of some whacko ideology the government shouldn't do jack shit for anybody who isn't filthy rich while at the same time increasing the tax burden on the middle class so they will hate the poor and public spending even more, is more and more apparent.
But most people just sit on their ass and let it happen.
The "Vote"
in Iraq probably means more trouble for the United States' occupation of that country:
More fundamentally, the entire election process is fatally tainted by the US military occupation. The regime that conducted the vote was appointed by the US occupation authorities, with the United Nations giving its rubber-stamp approval. The timing and procedures for the election were determined by US officials. And it was President Bush who decided earlier this month to reject the pleas of a majority of the Iraqi cabinet and oppose any postponement of the vote so as to allow for increased Sunni participation.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
I
found this little article which mentions about how much money casino mogul Steve Wynn paid for a couple of the major paintings that are currently in Reno at the Nevada Museum of Art. He paid $47.5 million for van Gogh's Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat, and close to $60 million for the famous Picasso painting Le Reve.
I read somewhere else Wynn paid somewhere around $285 million for various Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, so that's not counting ALL of the paintings he has in his collection.
In Its Typical Greedy
fashion and desire to milk people out of every last dime, Time refuses let online readers who aren't subscribers to even read one goddamned word about the "evangelicals" and the dictator; however, they were "nice" enough to offer a photo essay of the 25 "most influential evangelicals" in the country, 25 people we all need to be on the lookout for.
Thomas Oliphant
is upset the dictatorship is robbing the grave with their cynical use of dead Democrats like Daniel Patrick Moynahan to bolster their insane desire to destroy Social Security.
Interesting point about Bob Kerrey. He might not be the shithead on this issue I always pegged him to be. However, I believe he belonged to the Concord Coalition, one of the chief offenders of promoting lies about Social Security, so until I know for sure, I am not taking back all my obscenities directed at the former senator.
Few Monterey County
parents are pulling their kids out of the so-called "underperforming schools" to enroll in other schools in an apparent "fuck you" to NCLB.
Masherama.
"Hell no, I won't go," insists witchhunt victim Kevin Shelley, unless certain demands are met.
David Broder thinks the current governor has huge shoes to fill, meaning being on the same level as legendary governor Pat Brown.
Hell, why stop there? He'd have a hard time filling Jerry Brown's shoes, or even the shoes of another former actor who became governor.
The once-popular governor who was cynically put in by Karl Rove and his ilk to immunize himself and his backers from almost certain attack for the extremist agenda they want for California is finding his popularity dipping.
Nicholas von Hoffman
has some pleasant thoughts for us to ponder:
Two thousand and five looks like the year we find out if the trillions of dollars this society owes others comes due, if we are about to yaw into an extended period of economic trouble, if we are heading into a catastrophe which will make this country the world’s largest Argentina, or if we bump and muddle into 2006 dented and scratched but basically O.K.
Two dipshits, the dictator and Rick Santorum, a possible presidential contender, assuming the Republican Party survives to 2008, not a sure thing, were at the retreat this weekend where they and others of their ilk plotted the sure destruction of their political party by trying to con people into supporting the abolition of Social Security. Of more interest, however, are the drinks shown in the foreground of the article. Which drink did Bush drink? (Jason Reed, Reuters)
Can lightning strike twice for John Servis and Stewart Elliott? This year trainer Servis, far better known this year than at this time last year, has another undefeated colt being pointed to the Kentucky Derby, a horse named Rockport Harbor. Elliott is piloting this horse as well. It's happened before, I remember all too well. In 1972, trainer Lucien Laurin and jockey Ron Turcotte had a very good three-year-old colt who won two of the three legs of the Triple Crown, Riva Ridge, and the following year Secretariat came along for the duo. (AP)
Public Opinion
regarding the abolition of Social Security, er, "private accounts," varies widely and wildly.
It's pretty simple, actually. It all depends on how honestly the question is asked. It also depends on how well-informed those polled are.
Those who are easily brainwashed by the dictatorship and the liars in the general media, though in recent months the media have been much better actually telling the truth about the "shortfall" in Social Security and haven't been printing as much talking points from Cato/Heritage/Concord Coalition as before, are more likely to support the notion of "private accounts" than are better informed people.
If pollsters asked the true question, which is "do you favor the abolition of Social Security," which is what the Bush scheme truly is, I doubt ten percent would answer in the affirmative.
In a Report
that should surprise absolutely no one, workers' salaries and wages haven't kept up with inflation.
Of course, "employee compensation" has gone up, but that doesn't mean shit for workers because the increase is due to health insurance costs going through the roof.
My income for last year was about 1/4 what it was two years ago, and I'm hoping I can get back on my feet again in the next few months.
It Might Be Time
to take a closer look at Dick Durbin, who is no Deanna Durbin.
However, it would be very foolish to underestimate Harry Reid.
It's
bad shit at Black Rock.
The National Guard report was never proven to be inaccurate at all, but nutjobs on the right cast phony doubts for political reasons.
Readers know full well what I think of the whole thing. It was politically motivated, the sackings of the executives and producer and the trashing of Dan Rather, because they dared to expose the ugly truth about the Chickenhawk-in-Chief.
Moonves is a bad, bad, bad egg.
This
is supposedly the latest dope on the dopey prince's girlfriend allegedly smoking dope.
And that ain't all:
Paul Davy, Chelsy's uncle, told The Mail on Sunday the relationship was 'very serious' and might lead to marriage.
And it gets worse:
In the week before Christmas there were drinking sessions at the Bazaruto Lodge where Harry and Chelsy both jumped up on the bar counter. He climbed into an antique wooden boat suspended over the bar, calling for drinks while Chelsy, dressed in a tiny white miniskirt and red boob tube, gyrated sexily with a couple of girlfriends.
"It was more than high spirits," reported fellow guests. "They were both drunk. Harry had been guzzling Volcanos, cocktails made from vodka and hot peri-peri sauce, for hours. He went on to tequila slammers and other hard liquor - whatever he could get his hands on.
"Chelsy was ratted by the early hours of the morning. She staggered off to bed while Harry started throwing people into the pool. All the time her parents were looking on indulgently, smiling."
Gads.
A Daughter
of one of the leading figures of the media circus embarked on a different circus career.
Her dad is proud of her now despite his initial misgivings and fear.
The Republicans
decided to go to a retreat to try and hatch schemes to get public support for their extreme attitudes on Social Security and taxes, which will no doubt send them into retreat again.
This passage is unintentionally hilarious:
In another presentation, Senator John Thune of South Dakota introduced senators to the meaning of "blogging," explaining the basics of self-published online political commentary and arguing that it can affect public opinion.
He oughta know.
This
paragraph is pure bullshit:
Democrats and Republicans agree. The Social Security system needs to be reformed.
Not all Republicans believe there should be "reform," i.e., abolition. Nor do Democrats.
Only the extremists want to get rid of it, and it should surely be clear by now those who want to wreck the system are engaging in outright lies.
Naturally business would LOVE to get rid of it; after all, they contribute to half of each person's Social Security, with the employee contributing to the other half.
The obvious isn't usually brought out.
Women are hit hardest in any talk of "reforming" Social Security. Reading this article, there are some women who need a HELL of a lot of education about what Social Security is.
But as one person quoted in the article notes, if Bush proposes an idea, you KNOW it isn't any good.
Another article is here about the same thing.
is here.
No doubt there are a bumper crop of articles because it's close to the evening of the dictator's speech.
The New Yorker
digs into its archives and presents this 1978 Kenneth Tynan profile of Johnny Carson.
Although Carson didn't want a memorial service in L.A., many people turned out for one in Norfolk, Nebraska.
Bill Moyers
has an absolutely must-read piece about the demented fundies who really don't give a shit about how bad the country is or how bad the environment gets, because Jesus is going to return anyway.
And this demented viewpoint has gotten big time credence in Washington.
Maryland's
fascistic governor has basically declared war on working people.
People rightly focus most of their attention to the crap going on in Washington, but many states with Republican governors are trying equally rotten or worse shit.
Women's Sports
have come a long way in the past thirty years, thanks in large part to Title IX.
Somebody
had the nerve to sell KKK memorabilia at an auction.
Apparently not everybody who bid on the items were racists.
Too Bad
we don't have sleigh rallies out west.
It sounds like a fun thing to watch on a winter day.
This Columnist
believes Democrats can't afford to blow it against the fascists, now that the latter are hellbent on putting through an extremist agenda.
The writer believes electing the right DNC chair is key, i.e., it should be the Mouth who gets the job.
Actually, I think it's more critical we have a strong leader in Congress to knock back the dictator's worse policies.
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi should be far more effective than the Mouth.
The AARP
is putting Republicans on notice about Social Security: vote against the dictator's "reform" package or say bye-bye to their careers.
There are no shades of gray here, NO compromise at all.
Vote for it and your political career is over with.
This
is a birthday of note.
What's interesting is the oldest recorded twins lived to be 107 before they died in 2000.
As the World Turns.
I saw a man who messed with someone's wife
I saw the same man he ran for his life
In Chicago, Chicago, my hometown:
Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Joseph Berrios had a sexual relationship with a close friend's wife and got the woman a $48,000-a-year job in his office and a $28,000-a-year appointment to the state's Liquor Control Commission, a lawsuit charges.
There are more juicy details at the link. I didn't want to spoil it by excerpting more.
Trying
to tell Texas teens (love that alliteration) to not have sex until they are married is practically useless, as abstinence-only sex ed programs have had little effect on behavior.
All of the scare tactics in the world, all of the bloviating about sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancies, all of it is worthless when they are up against a bunch of kids with raging hormones and brains out to lunch.
Small Towns
around Aberdeen, South Dakota, are worrying about the effect a new Super Wal-Mart will have on their businesses.
No doubt some businesses will close.
Here
is a couple of deaths of local interest:
Priscilla Ford, 75, a death row inmate who in 1980 crazily drove down a major Reno street into a sidewalk, killing six and injuring 23. The killings made national headlines. Ford died early yesterday.
She had suffered from emphysema.
Sparks mayor Tony Armstrong, 59, who died early yesterday from complications resulting from a December surgery.
One of Armstrong's last public appearances was in November, when he introduced Dick and Lynne Cheney when they visited Sparks High School.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
It's Time
for an overview of the life and messes of the Barrymore family, from the early twentieth century to the present.
The Barrymore family was one of the original dysfunctional families.
Matt Bai
has a lengthy article about labor leader Andy Stern, head of the S.E.I.U., who is determined to make sure labor--and by extension workers--survive in this country.
God knows we need a vibrant labor movement with this anti-worker mentality of the administration and of big biz in general. Unfortunately, Stern ain't it for a leader, what with his ignorant attitude about the Republicans taking on "21st century" ideas, when in fact what they want is to DESTROY the last 100 years of social progress. He also is stupid to even suggest "reforming/ditching" Social Security and criticizing public education.
He sounds like a fucking mole.
What a bullshit headline for yet another article about the scamble for the DNC chairmanship. The Washington Post has a similar article, and Dana Milbank believes the Mouth is the frontrunner for the DNC chair job and may get it, since the anti-Mouth forces haven't united behind an alternative. It also helps the Mouth's cause Harold Ickes decided to back him. As I've said, if the Mouth gets it, I won't have that much problem with it. At least it takes him out of the presidential race in 2008. (Josh Martin Mantel, NYT)
Just for the hell of it I'll post this picture of Picasso's Le Reve, which is on display here in Reno until the end of March. It boggles the mind how much money Wynn spent on those paintings.
Masherama.
Arnold keeps trying to force the legislature and the public to do what he wants, and he may find out he is shooting himself in the ass.
The fact Arnold is seeking outside "help" (that is, donations) for getting through his extremist proposals regarding pensions and the like says it all.
Attacking CalPERS goes way beyond the state. After all, the state employees pension system has a LOT of clout that goes far beyond California and has impact on pensions nationwide, both public and private. To break the back of CalPERS would be a huge victory for corporate scumbags because they will be held less accountable.
Not that the average voter in California understands that. They will vote for this shit of wrecking CalPERS not realizing they are stabbing themselves in the back doing it.
The Republicans are good at this divide-and-conquer shit. They are trying to pit private workers against public workers no matter the fact the public employee pension system benefits THEM. The Republicans clearly have contempt for the intelligence of the average voter, and unfortunately the average voter seems to bear it out.
Arnold checks out a popular charter school.
As
Billy Graham and Oral Roberts prepare to meet their Maker, and as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell inch their way to the Great Beyond, a younger, even more media savvy but equally greedy generation of preachers is taking their place. This article is about one of the hottest commodities in the oversaturated televangelist world. Like the older generation of con men, er, men of God, this guy preaches the prosperity gospel, which as I've written consists of people giving their hard-earned money to enrich the preachers in the hopes making the preachers rich will make the poor sucker donors rich.
And like other prominent televangelists, he's making out like a bandit.
As the Dictator
prepares for the Speech of His Life, he is going to take aim to forge a Republican legacy, which could well mean the end of it.
If he doesn't kill it with his ruinous domestic agenda, he will surely kill it with his foreign policy foibles.
Here
is an article about a couple of other Wynn purchases.
I don't remember seeing the Cezanne, but the Renoir was there today. It's a stunning painting.
I
decided to take it easy today and went down to the Nevada Museum of Art (fixed link), which is winding up its exhibition of Ansel Adam's best known photographs. They about 50 of the 75 he handpicked as his best, and this particular collection came from Redding, California.
Another exhibition it has is some of the zillionaire casino mogul Steve Wynn's art collection, for which he got a special tax exemption, I believe, for buying and displaying it. Anyway, there were 14 paintings there, including three Picassos, a Rembrandt, a Jan Brueghel the Elder, a van Gogh, a Matisse, a Renoir, and also an Andy Warhol silkscreen work of the casino magnate himself. I have to say, though, that unless I somehow have enough money to travel to major art museums around the world, I probably will never see another Rembrandt or van Gogh in person. I guess Wynn buys and sells artwork quite often, and I suspect that's how he somehow obtained the van Gogh, which one can sell and retire in filthy rich luxury, to say nothing of Picasso's Le Reve, which is worth a good $50 million and probably more.
Andy Barron caught these deer near the headlights on US 395 near Stead. I hope wildlife officials have enough sense and try to feed as many of these poor animals as possible.
A very sad consequence of the shitstorms northern Nevada got hit with earlier this month is the fact deer are coming closer to town in a desperate attempt to find food. Dozens have been killed on the roads, and as many as 90 percent of the fawns could die this winter for lack of food. Many people think something should be done to feed the animals, although others say that is a bad idea. These deer were found at a house near the governor's mansion in Carson City. (Lisa J. Tolda, Reno Gazette-Journal)
The Latest
NYT bestseller list has some interesting titles on it, but none interesting enough to comment on, let alone buy.
Rumsfeld
may wuss out of going to a Munich conference for fear he may be hauled off to be charged with war crimes.
Friday, January 28, 2005
Poor Robert Blake.
It's bad enough to be a has-been actor, but it's even worse to be a has-been murder defendant.
Unlike other celebrities whose legal problems become the fodder of frontpage headlines around the world, Blake's case is largely ignored. Except for the Los Angeles Times and this blog, his trial is all but invisible. Nobody recognizes him on the street, much less wants his autograph. Worse still, he's simply no match for Michael Jackson or Phil Spector.
Life simply ain't fair.
John Dean
looks at Chief Justice Rehnquist's annual report on the federal judiciary, and points out there's a difference between his views and those of even more extreme Republicans like Tom DeLay.
It Appears
nobody has the DNC chairmanship locked up, but according to Tim Grieve, it could be a contest between the hotheaded Mouth and the coldhearted Frost.
It might be time for somebody to give John Edwards a call, if nobody can decide who they want.
Webb should have more support than he's getting.
Since I don't have cable, at least I still have my DVDs and tapes to look at. But since I haven't yet received my copies of the coronation and Rose Parade, I have make do with my DVD of those Ed Sullivan/Beatles broadcasts. However, I have to skip parts of the second Beatles appearance, the one in Miami for two reasons: one, because of the untalented warbling of Chicago's Hungarian Eiffel, as Sullivan called her, or Chicago's Hungarian Awful, as I call Mitzi Gaynor, and two, because of the swaypole act which I mentioned a year ago when I purchased the DVD set, the Nerveless Nocks. I about shit every time I see their swaypole routine. According to the link, which is of their official webpage, the poles are 80-feet high. Of course, the ones who were on the Sullivan show aren't the same people who perform now, but they are all members of the same family. They also have other equally hair-raising acts. (Nerveless Nocks webpage)
Some People
insist on insulting their pets by naming them after famous people.
I remember some dipshit woman who had a dog named George Bush. Fortunately, the dog was named after the first one and not the idiot currently in the White House.
Matthew Rothschild,
like most sane individuals, wasn't impressed with the dictator's press conference.
In a related matter, Halliburton is allegedly winding down its operations in Iraq:
Halliburton does business in Iran through a foreign-owned subsidiary, which is allowed as long as Americans don't participate in or direct that business. But a federal grand jury is investigating whether the Houston-based company or its executives deliberately violated a U.S. ban on trade with Iran.
Lesar said services the company provides in Iran aren't illegal, but they are "miniscule" in comparison with the company's other work and that Iran's business environment "is not conducive to our overall strategies and objectives."
"We have decided to wind down our operations there while fulfilling our existing contracts and commitments," Lesar said on the conference call.
A Friend
of the southern Oregon activist who died a couple of weeks ago wants to memorialize her by selling DVDs/tapes of her performing in one of her plays and her memorial service.
He hopes to raise enough money to help some local media and to start a local radio station.
Robert Parry
has a lot to say about our mess media, and the current messes aren't new, going back to at least the Reagan years:
But these ad hoc propaganda tactics of the 1980s didn’t go away.
With the investment of tens of billions of dollars over the next two decades, the strategy grew into the permanent conservative media machine that we know today, a vast echo chamber to amplify conservative messages on TV, in newspapers, through magazines, over talk radio, with book publishing and via the Internet.
This media machine gives conservatives and Republicans a huge political advantage both during elections and between elections. It has even changed how Americans perceive the world and what information they rely on to make decisions.
Emphysema
continues to be a major killer of smokers and is a horrible way to die.
Snip:
"Emphysema is usually a process that takes years to develop. It's very insidious because as your lung is destroyed, your body figures out a way to adapt. You don't really realize it until it's too late," says Dr. Stephen J. Jay, a pulmonologist and chair of the department of public health at IU's medical school. "Then, tragically, once destruction occurs in your lung with emphysema, it's largely irreversible."
Doctors can treat the symptoms, such as shortness of breath or a persistent cough, with medications like steroids. Many with emphysema go on oxygen to ease the shortness of breath. As COPD progresses, it can lead to heart failure or pneumonia.
But there's no way to turn back the clock on years of smoking.
"What I tell my patients is, if you smoke cigarettes, there will be damage. The lungs do not repair themselves, and you do not get new lungs," says Busk, chairman of the Indiana Thoracic Society, part of the American Lung Association of Indiana.
Just Because
a college president acts like a blitering idiot making idiotic remarks about women doesn't mean we should let him off the hook.
Seventy Years Later,
Republicans continue to bitch about FDR.
People like the radical right hate Roosevelt because not only the New Deal was a huge success, but he was the best friend capitalism ever had and saved it from almost certain total ruination through careful regulation.
Right-wing Republicans have their heads so far up their collective asses they can't see they've been wrong ON EVERY SINGLE THING, and history has proven them wrong.
Seventy Years Later,
Republicans are still bitching about FDR.
That's what the Social Security "debate" the dictatorship is trying to create is all about.
Republicans can't stand the fact that not only the New Deal was a huge success, but they can't stand the fact FDR literally saved capitalism in this country by putting in regulations.
Nobody
should let Lawrence Summers off the hook just because his remarks about women were stupid.
Here
is still more about the dictatorship's desire to shape the "language" on Social Security.
Democrats
are united on a lot of issues now, and they are even able to frame the debate, but some think there are Democrats like Hillary Clinton who are trying to pander to the religious right by making some statements about "values" and "abortion."
I wouldn't read much into her actions, however. She is attempting to take the issues off the table for 2006 and 2008. What would be more honest, though, is if she flat-out said the Republicans have no intention of banning abortion or fulfilling the other pet issues of the religious right. They are being used by the Republican cynics in order to get votes, while at the same time they pass laws that screw these same people over economically.
Thanks
to the fallout from Punditpoop, newspaper syndicates are working to clean up the mess and putting in guidelines to prevent further messes.
Meanwhile, the Middletown Journal in Ohio has decided to drop Maggie Gallagher's column.
Democrats
look to Newt the Coot for some answers on how to deal with those in power.
Kurtz Kount: Kurtz 23, C&P 27.
For the week: Kurtz 140, C&P 167.
Booming Economy Casualty List for 1/22-1/29.
The economy is allegedly doing the best it has done in five years.
Whatever.
In the meantime:
Continental Airlines--200 jobs lost
SBC--7,000 jobs lost
BAE--2,000 jobs lost
E.J. Dionne
takes a look at JRE's big political gamble as he (Edwards) prepares for a likely run in 2008.
Of course, he was the one who should have been the presidential nominee last time. The Republicans would have had their work cut out for them in rigging many, many more states.
While Cheney
receives derision abroad, the dictator faces skepticism at home over his extremist proposals, even among Republicans.
In a couple of minutes, I'm outta here until later today.
WSWS wasn't the only one that was insulted by the Cheneys' appearance at Auschwitz. Many were offended by the President's casual dress at such a solemn ceremony. (Herbert Knoskoski, AP)
Cheney's Presence
at the Auschwitz ceremony yesterday was certainly an insult on many levels:
Cheney did not have to deliver a speech to remind his audience that those in power are capable of unspeakable cruelty; his mere presence sufficed. He is identified, perhaps more than any other world figure, with such evils.
Who is Cheney to represent the American people at Auschwitz? The US vice president is identified with the most right-wing political forces in America. In the 1980s, as a Republican congressman from Wyoming, he acted as a defender of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, voting against a resolution calling for an end to the quarter-century imprisonment of Nelson Mandela. Currying favor with homegrown racists, he likewise voted against the decision to make Martin Luther King’s birthday an official holiday.
Naturally the dictator wussed out--again.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
The NYT
follows on the heels of the WP and has an interview with George.
I will make sure I miss it, but the State of the Union speech is supposed to be coming up shortly.
Jack Shafer
believes all of this emphasis on blogs, especially the emphasis on blogs somehow replacing traditional journalism, is so much overkill.
And it is. Unless a blogger is connected with mainsteam media and thus has the resources to do "original reporting," the vast majority of them utilize both the traditional and nontraditional media. Bloggers NEED the regular media more than vice versa, although many in mainstream media like to look at blogs to get ideas for stories or to find information they weren't aware of before.
Both feed off of each other. However, there are some bloggers who think they are going to slay the world with their masterful insights and writing. Looking at most of them, frankly, they don't deserve all of the hype and the hits.
Joe Conason
has plenty to say about pundits who also are propagandists for the administration.
Paul Krugman
rips apart the dictatorship's nonsense about Social Security hurting minorities.
If you haven't got a goddamned argument except for fucking greed, play the race card.
And when that fails, well, we can be sure they will come up with yet another goddamned lie.
In a related matter, some people have been making calls to senior constituents of certain Republican representatives claiming they support privatization, which may not be the case.
Nobody knows who is making the calls.
I Don't
want to leave out this little report about all of the money the dictatorship spent on p.r. firms to push their propaganda.
If I were the reporter, I'd change my last name.
On second thought, considering he's writing about the administration of the DUIs-in-Chief, maybe it's appropriate.
Democrats
shouldn't read too much into Bill Thomas' bull about the dictator's privatization plan.
He invariably ends up supporting the dictator.
Which means he needs to be thrown out, just like anybody else who votes for this obscenity.
Johnny Carson
died in the hospital rather than at home, and he blamed "those damn cigarettes" for his health problems.
The Lamebrained Dictator
is now a lame duck "president," or some would say a "dead duck" president, but he still acts like he is campaigning instead of doing his job. He added insult to injury by going back the state his henchmen stole last year, Ohio, to push yet another one of his brilliant ideas, more use of computers in health care.
Benjamin R. Barber
says what needs to be said as to why privatizing Social Security is such a horrible idea, and, in the end unworkable:
Yet the most profound cost of privatization has been wholly ignored: the systemic cost to our public way of life. By turning a public social insurance and pension policy into a private bet in which personal and private decisions determine who does well and who does badly, we do irreparable harm to our democratic "common ground." After all, one of this nation's greatest public goods has been its promise to give every working family a guarantee of support at retirement, or in case of disability or death. This promise, offered to all citizens, wipes away all the distorting traces of class, race and gender that often play out so dismayingly in the private realm. You cannot simply take justice out of the public realm and put it into the private realm without fundamentally weakening the democracy on which the very possibility of justice depends.
Of course, this is what the Cato Institute and all of the rest of the con artists want: They stupidly think having a social Darwinist world is somehow freedom. Well, it isn't; it's the exact opposite.
Sondra Blake Kerr
made an excellent character witness for her ex-husband:
She recalled seeing Blake in January 2001 while she was out running.
"I gave him a hug and said, 'Congratulations on your marriage and the new baby.'"
She said his response was, "Yeah, yeah."
"I said again, 'Gosh, a new baby,'" she recalled.
"And did he do something?" asked Deputy District Attorney Shellie Samuels.
"He grabbed me by the wrist and said, 'The baby's real but the marriage isn't,'" she said. "He pushed me up against the wall and said, 'The marriage is all smoke and mirrors.' ... He said it was a big mess."
The USSC
has lifted a restraining order delaying the execution of convicted serial killer Michael Ross. There is still a lawsuit pending which was filed by his father.
Leaders the world over, including Queen Elizabeth, marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
It is not known how Prince Harry marked the occasion.
Here is one article of interviews with survivors from the death camp. (Jan Bauer, AP)
Crybabies
in Washington state claim they have found 300 illegal votes.
Keep trying, stupids.
Associated Press
carried this outrageous story of a man who was hit by a car, but instead of being sent to the hospital, he was sent to the morgue. He had been in a body bag for two hours before the bag was unzipped and he was found taking shallow breaths.
It was then he was sent to a hospital where he is in critical condition.
The case is being investigated.
Quote of the Day.
"I feel like a 25-year-old."--Golfing great Arnold Palmer, talking about his marriage today in Hawaii to fiancee Kathleen Gawthrop. It was his second marriage. His first wife died in 1999.
But thank God he didn't ACT like a goddamned old fool pretending to be 25. Gawthrop has kids and grandkids and presumably isn't a young chick, though her age isn't given.
John Nichols
is madly in love with Barbara Boxer.
It never dawns on Nichols or Mike Malloy or Bernie Ward or any number of other progressives or liberals that perhaps Barbara is "standing for what is right" because it is a deliberate calculation by the Democrats. She just won re-election by a huge margin, and nobody six years into the future are going to care about her votes now except her fans.
Therefore she has absolutely nothing to lose by sticking her neck out on Condi, on EC certification, and so on.
Some people, even people who have been active or have observed politics for years can't figure out the obvious.
Yeah, Sure.
Bush and Rove hope to counter their racist backing by pandering to black evangelicals.
Talk about a hopeless case.
Why should they bother anyway when they can merely rig the vote?
Some Oklahoma
political idiot wants to revive the "sport" of cockfighting in the state by having the roosters wear "gloves" instead of razors.
Cordelia Scaife May, sister of one of our favorite bizarro billionaires, died at the age of 76. She died of pancreatic cancer. Although she and her more celebrated brother weren't close following the death of her first husband until recently, she was known as a philanthropist in her own right, especially in family planning issues. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Masherama.
Dipshit governor is acting like a crybaby because he hasn't gotten his way on his extremist agenda.
Murder counts have been filed in yesterday's train derailment which resulted in death and injury.
The guy felt suicidal, yet he chickened out at the end and caused others to die.
Well, if he couldn't kill himself, perhaps the state will do the job.
Arnold may be personally "popular," but people are concerned about school issues.
He will either have to back down from his extremism or else risk getting himself recalled.
Actually,
Grover Norquist was and is deeply involved with anti-tax groups in Oregon to create the conditions described in the state.
That's why the state is turning into shit.
The same is happening in California.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
I didn't know Johnson co-designed the famous Crystal Cathedral for televangelist Robert Schuller back in 1980. Whenever I see this building, I think about how much work it must be to clean the building. (Damian Dovarganes, AP)
This odd looking structure is the Roofless Church designed by Phillip Johnson, who died yesterday at the age of 98. (Corbis)
One Could Argue
Christine Todd Whitman is part of the problem with why the Republican Party has gone off the deep end instead of the solution.
After all, when she wanted to be a player, she could pull the rhetorical shit as good as any true blue right-winger. Now that she's no longer needed by the powers-that-be, she's bellyaching they've gone too far off the beam.
Well, the moderates allowed themselves to be purged by the take-no-prisoners fascistic right. And if the party does end up in deserved oblivion, she and her ilk have nobody to blame but themselves.
I Missed
the dictator's press conference today, but I guess it was notable for what he didn't say as for what he did say.
He has to put a happy face on the mess in Iraq.
File
under "No Shit" this article about the shortcomings of the Chilean privatization "miracle."
It's a miracle it's still around. Both the bogus pension scheme and the country.
This skimpy outfit costing almost $500 is advertised as a "prom dress," but if any are sold they aren't being worn to any prom. I doubt there's a school in the country that would allow such a piece of crap to be worn. (Liz Sullivan, photo)
Representative Jim Gibbons
proved he is nothing but the average shit for brains Republican:
If he decides to run for governor, U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons isn’t expected to face any backlash from his recent statement that people who don’t support corporate contributions for inaugural parties “obviously must be communists,” analysts say.
This Columnist
has some real nostalgia for what Johnny Carson represented.
Take a look at what passes for "entertainment" now:
There's American Idol, where the marginally talented are judged by Paula Abdul and two guys with no talent at all.
There's The Jerry Springer Show, still stinking out airwaves five days a week.
Then we have the show Maury, hosted by Maury Povich, which frequently has women who come on the airwaves and - in front of a television audience of possibly millions - howl and whoop and demand that one, or two, or three men be given paternity tests to see which is the father of their child. Or children.
We have profanities being used that Carson never uttered, because he could be genuinely funny without saying them. We have a ruckus caused by Janet Jackson's breast being exposed at last year's Super Bowl halftime show and relative quiet when, about 10 years earlier, actor Dennis Franz bared his bottom on an episode of NYPD Blue. Given a choice between having to look at Janet Jackson's breast or Franz's naked bum, I know what my priorities would be. But the America of 1962 would have tolerated neither.
Not
too many people have written about how Johnny Carson died.
Emphysema is a horrible disease, and once one gets it, there's no way it can be undone. My mother was a heavy smoker AND had bronchial asthma, a lethal combination, and although she had quit for more than twenty years, she ended up dying of the disease.
She was on oxygen from about 1986 until she died in 1999, which is far longer than most people. I have heard those who have emphysema typically have horrible deaths, but my mother, like Carson apparently, went into a coma and died in her sleep.
That might have been the first time she felt halfway good in decades.
Here
is the roll call vote on Condi Rice.
Akaka, Bayh, Boxer, Byrd, Dayton, Durbin, Harkin, Jeffords, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, Levin, and Reed voted against confirmation, all Democrats except for independent Jeffords.
Incompetent Condi
won confirmation as Secretary of State, though the 13 votes against confirmation happen to be the highest against any secretary of state since World War II.
In any case, her presidential ambitions are shot dead, as she will be as dismal a secretary of state as she was a national security advisor.
Maggie Gallagher
has some criticisms of the Howard Kurtz article, and he fires back with a rebuttal.
Masherama.
San Francisco apparently wants to screw the poor by its attempt to impose a bag tax.
A weirdo parks his SUV on some railroad tracks, causing a train to derail. Ten are dead and about 200 are injured.
Dipshit governor wants to hold a special election because he can't get his way with the legislature.
Perhaps if the idiot weren't so extremist, he could actually get things accomplished.
Like Father, Like Son.
The dictator uses the race card to try and secure approval of candidates who are either questionable or incompetent.
And in a few minutes I am gone until later this afternoon.
Howard Kurtz
tries to examine why Johnny Carson was so important.
Kurtz Kount: Kurtz 20, C&P 27.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
If You
are George W. Bush and you are desperate in wanting to screw over the American people with destructive proposals, you have no choice but to pull a Democrat out of the grave to support your shitty program, even if the dead Democrat didn't support anything of the kind:
But in implying that Mr. Moynihan was a supporter of his approach to Social Security, Mr. Bush and his team are open to challenge, based on Mr. Moynihan's record and documented indications that he was not totally happy with the commission's work. Moreover, their use of his name has drawn criticism from the Moynihan family and people who worked with him.
"It's confusing to me and my mom why they are constantly invoking him without presenting his position on Social Security," said Maura Moynihan, the senator's daughter, referring as well to his widow, Elizabeth.
"I think it's odd or strange or unsettling that the Democrat being invoked here is dead and not able to defend or explain his position, which we all know he would have done with eloquence and passion," said Ms. Moynihan, who described herself as a liberal who supported Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts in the presidential race.
Never mind the truth. It's propaganda time for the regime.
I Completely
agree with this piece and explains why the Schiavo case pisses me off so much.
So many self-described "liberals" cheered on the USSC's chickenshit decision yesterday because they hate Jeb Bush so much for interfering with what they deem is a private matter. They also cheer it because they perceive it as a "defeat" for the antiabortion movement, of which many members have sided with the Schindler family.
Well, the problem is that it was not a private matter the minute the husband decided he wasn't going to divorce his incapacitated wife and was going to fight the parents tooth and nail. It reeks of greed, just like the shit you hear about when somebody tries to kill somebody for the insurance money or for the inheritance. There's no goddamned way I believe a word out of him when he claims he's doing what Terri "wanted." Considering how young she was when she was disabled, I doubt she made any such wishes known. Loving husband, my goddamned ass.
If that's love, I can live without that kind of "love," thank you.
He could have gotten a divorce, married his shack-up of ten years whom he knocked up twice, and gotten on with his life. True, he would have had less money, but at least he would have looked a hell of a better than he does now.
As it is, he's as low as anybody can get.
This passage is key:
Terri's cause has been adopted by religious conservatives with passionate advocacy. I am neither religious nor conservative, but as a compassionate progressive, I believe the Schiavo case spotlights a critical juncture in the preservation of a humanistic and humanitarian culture: Allowing Terri to die via starvation belies and mocks the ethics and principles of a civilized society.
Sometimes I think liberals have a kneejerk reaction to something just to be contrarian.
Take a look at some of the discussion boards like Democratic Underground regarding this subject, and you will see what I mean by "kneejerk." There's no thinking through this issue at all by most of the posters.
You Know
it's a pretty slow news day when the New York Times thinks it's newsworthy to include the story about efforts in Washington state to repeal an outdated law on women's "virtue."
This is the Criteria
qualifying something as an L.A. Historical Landmark:
What Makes a Structure, Property or Site Historic?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A landmark designation is reserved for those structures, sites or features that have a special aesthetic, cultural, architectural or engineering interest or value of an historic nature. The City Council designates Historic-Cultural Monuments on recommendation of the Cultural Heritage Commission. Designation recognizes the unique architectural and historical value of these structures and helps protect them. When determining historic significance, the Cultural Heritage Commission and staff ask the following questions: • Has the building retained its original design and materials? • Is the site or structure an outstanding example of past architectural styles or craftsmanship? • Did the architect, engineer or owner have historical associations that either influenced architecture in the city or had a role in the development or history of Los Angeles?
link
Quote of the Day. "He was a character. The goats climbed all over the tower. It was a scream."--Former Cultural Commissioner Bob Winter, about "artist" Dan van Meter and his masterwork. (Lawrence K. Ho, Los Angeles Times)
Here is a story worth printing off. This is the story of an eccentric man who built a godawful eyesore made out of 2,000 pallets and jokingly became a monument on the level with the "Hollywood" sign. He had all kinds of junk on his property, but this was the most enduring. However, the man died a few years ago, leaving no wife or kids, but some greedy relatives want to tear this magnificent piece of shit down to make way for apartments. After all, the land is worth an estimated $7 million, and that can't be overlooked. Some people, however, are quite upset because they think this whatever the hell you call it is a tribute to a man who wanted to do things his way, and he did. (Bob Carey, Los Angeles Times)
Since
I have been pretty tired today, even though I worked just half a day, I haven't felt much like blogging here. Evidently people don't feel like reading here, either, since the visits are way, way down today.
My hits aren't that consistent. I think a lot of it depends on how much there is to write about and a lot of it depends on my mood.
I am about wiped out for some damned reason.
Before Mike Malloy
went into his stupid rant tonight against the Democrats, which is getting old and is forcing me to shut off his program, he mentioned this little story about a young woman who was threatened with arrest by some cop, no doubt a Bush supporter, simply because she had a bumper sticker which said "Fuck Bush."
Since having a bumper sticker like this isn't in violation of any law or ordinance, the cop in question is being investigated.
I'd hate to think what would have happened to that guy I wrote about three or four months ago who was driving around Reno with bumper stickers all over his car which read "Bush + Dick = Sex."
And then there's an idiot who has a pickup with a camper on it who lives a few blocks from me. He has the usual Republican shit on it supporting the dictator and Rush Limbaugh. But this guy is really out in whacko country, for he has a bumper sticker which says "Never Apologize for Being White" and with a Confederate flag included on the sticker. What a dork, especially considering this neighborhood is at least 50 percent hispanic.
The Mouth
stresses the importance of grassroots organizing.
It's pretty clear he's shilling for the DNC chair.
As the World Turns.
It seems old Armstrong Williams wasn't the only columnist on the take.
But she's apologized:
But the real truth is that it never occurred to me. On reflection, I think Howard is right. I should have disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it. My apologies to my readers.
Who's next?
These Writers
are worried sick reading "literature," meaning fictional crap that appeals to the snob culture, is declining among young women and especially men. But they are even more worried sick about reading declining in general, and boys are getting the short end of the stick because they aren't getting the opportunity to read enough books which appeal to boys or biographies with men who are worth a shit to write about.
I have written about the way reading literature is taught both in high school but especially in college, and it absolutely kills one's enjoyment of reading fiction.
I can't blame people from turning from it when they are repeatedly told they need to analyze the shit out of a book, a poem, or a short story, and psychoanalyze what the author intended.
It totally kills it.
As for nonfiction, I wonder just how much an effect the internet has on reading habits. The computer is a tremendous time suck and the fact boys are more likely to spend hours on the idiot tube than girls makes me think that perhaps because reading books has declined, perhaps reading in general truly hasn't.
Of course, there's nothing like reading a book or a newspaper or a magazine, none of which is as hard on the eyes as sitting in front of computer.
The Dictator
is trying his damnedest to try and convince Republicans to go along with his fraudulent little private account scheme.
The Republicans will either vote for this thing and risk paying for it with their careers or they will reject this piece of shit.
An Old-Line Conservative
has very little regard for the pretenders who claim to be "conservatives" but aren't:
Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy. I went overnight from being an object of conservative adulation to one of derision when I wrote that the US invasion of Iraq was a "strategic blunder."
It is amazing that only a short time ago the Bush administration and its supporters believed that all the US had to do was to appear in Iraq and we would be greeted with flowers. Has there ever been a greater example of delusion? Isn't this on a par with the Children's Crusade against the Saracens in the Middle Ages?
Delusion is still the defining characteristic of the Bush administration. We have smashed Fallujah, a city of 300,000, only to discover that the 10,000 US Marines are bogged down in the ruins of the city. If the Marines leave, the "defeated" insurgents will return. Meanwhile the insurgents have moved on to destabilize Mosul, a city five times as large. Thus, the call for more US troops.
A Texas Town
can't believe a great-grandmother killed her great-grandson and then killed herself.
These So-Called
"Christian conservatives" will never admit they've been used by the Republicans for years and years and years and the Republicans will never give them what they want because that takes away a wedge issue.
There won't be any "gay marriage ban" amendment or anything else they won't.
They are too busy trying to screw them and other people over economically to care.
Those Liars
at the Cato Institute and their ilk couldn't care less about the "freedom" people would "have" if they "invested" "their" money in private accounts instead of having it in Social Security.
It's the crackpot notion "libertarians" have that taxation is some kind of "theft," and people have the right to screw others over because the only "right" and "freedom" there is is the "right" and "freedom" to own property that underlies the whole bullshit "argument" they propose to abolish ALL government programs except those benefiting the tiny economic elite.
In other words, it is social Darwinist bullshit that was totally discredited with the Great Depression.
We Shouldn't
believe anything the Republicans say anyway, but certainly the notion their despicable behavior in Congress is no worse than what Democrats did is a whopper to make note of.
Richard Nixon wasn't the only one who appreciated Rose Mary Woods. However, it appears she wasn't a file clerk. (Nixon Library and Birthplace)
