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June 28, 2005

Bush's Ambassador to Canada Is An Idiot

It's no secret that Presidents choose many ambassadorial picks from the ranks of large political donators, but Bush has gone the extra mile with his choices. Witness Bush's selection of David Wilkins for the ambassador to Canada. NPR did a story today about him and his staggering lack of knowledge of Canada and how the Canadians perceive his selection. Pay close attention to the answer he gives about where he went when he last visited Canada. What a maroon.

Posted by Steven at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)

Canada Passes Gay Marriage Law

It's official, Canada is enlightened and the U.S. isn't.

Posted by Steven at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)

June 27, 2005

$60.45

$60.45 a barrel.

Posted by Winston Smith at 03:49 PM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2005

Iraq: More Death, More Lies

On October 22nd, a US patrol led by 1st Lt. Terry "T.J." Grider's platoon were sent to investigate insurgent activity near Buhriz, Iraq. According to their report, they came under fire from small arms and RPGs at around 7:20 am. Later, Captain Bill Coppernoll from the 1st Infantry Division published a death toll of nine insurgents.

Some time after that, a citizen named Mark Kraft recieved some rather disturbing images that had been forwarded through a series of friends, as happens often on the Internet. These photos suggest that Grider's platoon didn't kill any insurgents, but innocent Iraqi teenagers.

Before: Dead Kid After: Dead Insurgent
dead_kid.jpg dead_insurgent.jpg

Assuming that the platoon came under fire as reported, they had good reason to return fire, and this poor kids and others shown in this writeup may have been victims caught in a crossfire.

This "collateral damage" is one of the reasons why it's important to make sure that you go to war for a good reason. The apparent attempt to frame innocent people to increase the body count is not something that is justifyable in any war. Worse yet, if you got to the page, you'll see a hapless survivor arrested at gunpoint, posed with the same three pieces of weaponry array in front of the dead and wounded.

How much you wanna bet that on October 22nd, 2004, the insurgency became larger?

Posted by Winston Smith at 01:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Reasonable Seizure Becomes Less Reasonable

Thanks to the increasingly irrelevant FifthAmendment, the government may seize your property if there is a public interest in doing so, in which case, they must also compensate you for it.

Traditionally, "public interest" meant, well, "public interest." In other words, it was limited to things of clear value to the public, such as roads or schools. It was later extended to included blighted areas that were too far gone to gentrify.

Today, then the Supreme Court ruled that this could include shopping malls and office parks. Don't believe me? Read this. The argument is that these facilities will increase tax revenue. Unfortunately, that's iffy.

What isn't iffy is that building office parks and shopping malls will enrich the developers who build them. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor pointed out that the only guaranteed benecificaries of these projects will be the kind of people who have the money and influence to push for them. Justices Renquist, Scalia, and Thomas joined in the dissent.

Holy fuck. I agree with Justices Scalia, Renquist and Thomas.

Posted by Winston Smith at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)

June 21, 2005

Operation Yellow Elephant Recruiting Poster


What more can I say? More on Operation Yellow Elephant.

Posted by Winston Smith at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2005

Oil Nears $60

Oil closed at $59.37 today.

Posted by Steven at 04:57 PM | Comments (1)

Gov. Bush Punishes Schiavo

In the endless war to make all politics personal, the Bushes launched another salvo this weekend by asking a Florida state prosecutor to "look into charges against Schiavo" over possible spousal abuse that he alleges the autopsy implies.

Gov. Jeb Bush asked a state prosecutor on Friday to investigate the circumstances of Terri Schiavo's collapse, saying a new autopsy report revealed a possible gap between when Ms. Schiavo fell unconscious and when her husband called paramedics.

"It's a significant question that during this entire ordeal was never brought up," Governor Bush told reporters in Tallahassee after faxing a letter to Bernie McCabe, the state attorney in Pinellas County, where Ms. Schiavo suffered extreme brain damage when her heart temporarily stopped beating in 1990.

In a statement on Friday, Ms. Schiavo's husband, Michael, called Governor Bush's actions "sickening" and said he had called 911 promptly.

The governor's letter could further prolong an exhaustively fought case that even many of his fellow Republicans said it was time to close after the autopsy found no evidence of foul play in Ms. Schiavo's collapse nor any sign that further treatment would have restored the functions of her withered brain.

Governor Bush, who vehemently fought the court-ordered removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube, said he decided to seek an investigation after speaking with Dr. Jon R. Thogmartin, the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy, on Tuesday, a day before his report was released. According to records, the report says, a 911 call was placed about 5:40 a.m. on Feb. 25, 1990.

State Senator Michael S. Bennett, of Bradenton, was among nine Republican senators who helped block legislation in March that could have stopped the removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube. He said he was shocked that Mr. McCabe agreed to review the case, adding that any impropriety would have been discovered during the prodigious court review.

"What evidence was there ever presented by anybody," Mr. Bennett asked, "that would even cause them to go on this escapade?"

Governor Bush is a Catholic and abortion opponent. Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said he thought the governor's latest move was "a product of his own personal beliefs" but also, possibly, an attempt to win political points.

What a fucking prick. Bush is beating this dead woman's carcass to gain "points" with the so-called "Culture of Life" crowd. Sick, sick, sick. They're a cult of Death, not a culture of Life.

Afterword

Isn't it amazing that only now, fifteen years later, and only after her final physical death, does this become an issue, and one that is so blatantly political? God I hope this bites Bush in the ass -- the scumball doesn't deserve to be garbage collector.

Posted by Steven at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)

June 19, 2005

A Modest Proposal For Iraqi Freedom

Peace and freedom are on the national water-cooler-conversation agenda, thanks the ongoing Baghdadapalloza festival, so I want to talk a little about freedom, and what it means to an oppressed people.

Many, many Iraqi's hate Saddam Hussein, but Americans have been baffled at their emnity towards Americans which has occasionally seemed even greater. The crux of the problem is that even though we've removed the tyrant, we haven't given them their freedom, we've given them ours. Sure, they voted for some of their countrymen to form a government, but most Americans don't realize that that isn't the "real" government.

The current Iraqi Parliament is a representative body charged with forming the real government. By allowing officials elected by Iraqis to write the charter for the final government, it's hoped that the electorate will accept the authenticity of this new regime. The fact is — and the average Iraqi is much more aware of this than the average American — the transitional Parliament is operating under American rules, and ultimately, under American authority. I have yet to see this observation appear amongst the ardent exaltations of American activities in Iraq.

Historically, transition from oppression to freedom has been been met with injustice and brutality from factions that favor the status quo. Right now, the U.S. backed provisional government is facing armed opposition from a number of factions. Who those factions are is not as important as the fact that the response has been increasingly characterized by injustice and brutality. This trend means that the U.S.-sponsored state has essentially abandoned a fight for freedom; it is now simply fighting for power.

The bottom line is that conditions of post-war Iraq are not compatible with liberty and justice. It doesn't matter how much that affects what they do, or whether the American public sees it that way. What matters is what the Iraqis think. I want the Iraqis to have liberty and self-rule as well, and so I'm urging them to demand it from the man who can grant it: George W. Bush.

The Iraqs may need our help to succeed, but it is critical that they realize that they don't need our permission. If they accept freedom as something that was given them by America, then they'll accept as something that can be taken from them by America, if not someone else. Freedom is something ever human being has by right; they can surrender it or it can be denied, but it can't be taken.

Replacing Saddam Hussein with any new government won't give birth to freedom — authentic, durable Iraqi freedom — unless the Iraqis take ownership of the process. More accurately, political power will belong to the Iraqis who win the fight for it.

Right now, the people who have fought and won power in Iraq are the Americans. The only ones still in the game are the insurgents and terrorists. That's why they are attacking the forces of the new government — no matter how carefully and ethically we transfer power, that government will still be the recipient of American power. If Iraq becomes a stable and prosperous nation, resentment will fade. If you think it will happen in any short period of time, spend some time in the Southeast U.S. and ponder the proliferation of Conferderate flags and emblems.

The American revolutionaries recieved a great deal of help from the French, but French troops didn't fight the battles. Our fundamental mistake may be that we tried to stage an Iraqi revolution without any Iraqi revolutionaries.

Worse still, there were — and still are — Iraqis ready to fight to topple Saddam Hussein, it's just that we didn't want those Iraqis to succeed. If we did, we would have let them succeed in 1991. The same decision-makers who decided they'd rather have Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq, rather than the Shi'a and the Kurds, are in charge of deciding who gets power this time around. This time the Shi'a and the Kurds are along for the ride, and things aren't going smoothly.

Our best hope is to foment revolution. If there exists a sufficient segment of the Iraqi population that is not just willing, but enthusiastic, about a unified, multi-ethnic Iraq, we need to get them organized and fired up to assert authority. Let's get a faction together that will have the balls to assert their right to sovereignty openly and militantly. Anyone with the popular support needed to do this doesn't have to conceal their identities or their locations.

We need to find some Iraqis who truly speak for a motivated following, who will say, "Mr. Bush, below you will find a list of the names of the people who are running Iraq for Iraqis. You can find us in the Parliament hall in Baghdad, but we suggest you come in as peaceful visitor, because we're not going to accept you on our soil under any other terms. Now take your troops and get out of our country. Regards, [signatures]."

I've included a draft list of accusations that they level against George W. Bush. It's dripping with righteous indignation expressed with diplomatic flair — at least that's what I think. It would be different in Arabic. I'm just trying to show the kind of tone — fighting mad, but dignified — that will rally both domestic and international support. See if you don't find youself getting a little pissed off at the thought of being subjected to any of this.

    He has dissolved Representative Houses, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
  • He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
  • He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing judiciary powers.
  • He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
  • He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
  • He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.
  • He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.
  • He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
    • For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
    • For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
    • For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
    • For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury:
    • For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences:
    • For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
    • For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
    • He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
    • He has plundered our oil, ravaged our coasts, level our cities, and destroyed the lives of our people.
    • He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
    • He has constrained our fellow citizens to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
    • He has failed to secure our borders against ingress by the inhabitants of neighboring states, the merciless islamic radicals whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
  • In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. a prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Anyway, you get the picture. This isn't an exact list. I found it on the Internet and it wasn't originally about Iraq. I removed a few things that the Iraqis will want to replace with something similar, but original. Here's an example of the kind of stuff I took out of the original:

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Now that's how you get your freedom!

One more thing: I know it might be a bit of a rush, but if you could get this done by the first Monday in July, it would get a lot more attention in the U.S.

Posted by Winston Smith at 04:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 15, 2005

Schiavo Really Was Brain Dead

Mrs. Schiavo's autopsy is in, and like Micheal Joe Jackson's verdict, few on the right will be pleased.

An autopsy on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding that she had massive and irreversible brain damage and was blind, the medical examiner's office said Wednesday. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused.

So when Frist said she was not a veg, he was giving a grossly incorrect diagnosis in violation of his medical license. Not that breaking the law matters to the GOP.

Posted by Steven at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)

Osama bin Laden Still Alive

Remeber Osama? He's still alive. Just thought you ought to know. Seems like the Bush Adminstration has taken it's eye off the ball for too long here.

Posted by Steven at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)

June 08, 2005

Florida Lightning Rod Will Run for Senate

Katherine Harris, the GOP's vote-fraud insider of 2000, has announced she's running for Senate in 2006. She's an automatic lightning rod for both the GOP and the Democratic candidate, and is sure to raise the stakes, and the price, of the race into the tens of millions.

Ms. Harris, a Republican who gained international fame during the 2000 presidential vote recount as Florida's secretary of state, has been mulling a Senate run almost since winning election to Congress in 2002. She considered joining the race for Senator Bob Graham's seat when he retired last year but held off at the last minute, saying, "All in good time."

At that point, some Republican leaders feared a Harris candidacy would dredge up too many bitter memories of the recount, potentially fueling Democratic turnout and hurting President Bush's re-election campaign here. In what was seen partly as a pre-emptive strike against Ms. Harris, Republicans in Washington encouraged Mel Martinez, then Mr. Bush's housing secretary, to run. Mr. Martinez narrowly won Mr. Graham's seat.

But Mr. Bush is now safely in his second term, no other strong candidates have emerged to face Mr. Nelson, and Ms. Harris's star quality and fund-raising powers have endured.

In a statement, Ms. Harris, a fourth-generation Floridian who represents the state's 13th District from Sarasota, said she would not formally announce her candidacy and campaign staff until July. She hinted that defeating Mr. Nelson, who was elected to the Senate in 2000 after spending 12 years in the House of Representatives and has already raised millions of dollars for the race, would be tough.

Here's hoping she gets beaten to a pulp.

Posted by Steven at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)

Bush Government Tampers with Science

CNN is reporting that Bush Adminstration officials tampered with the scientific findings of government studies.

A White House official, who previously worked for the American Petroleum Institute, has repeatedly edited government climate reports in a way that downplays links between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Philip Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, made changes to descriptions of climate research that had already been approved by government scientists and their supervisors, the newspaper said, citing internal documents.

How many more lies will the Bush Administration thrust upon the country? When Houston dissappears under the Gulf of Mexico, will there still be a statue to President Bush's father in the airport? Will it be an attraction that scuba divers visit?

Posted by Steven at 10:59 AM | Comments (1)

Open Government, Open Source

OK, before I get into this, let me just say that drunk driving is a crime that people shouldn't commit. Furthermore, if they are convicted of this crime, they should face the consequences.

Unless, obviously, they run for President, in which case "youthful indescretions" should be forgiven. Also, 30 years old should be considered an acceptable age at which to indiscretions can be considered youthful.

That said, I still think it's important to prove the guilt of an accused drunk driver. I also think that the responsibility to prove this guilt falls on the prosecutor. Finally I really feel strongly that the prosecution case must be conclusive enough to eliminate any doubts — within reason — concerning the guilt of the accused, or we should assume that they are not guilty.

I don't think I am being too radical in stating these opinions, seeing as how this is how our legal system is supposed to work.

Well, surprise, surprise! Once again, the basic foundations of American liberty are proving controversial in the so-called "Ignorance Belt" States. You might have also heard these referred to as "Red" states due to the number of citizens in those States who, "ain't red a newspaper since Rush came on the talking box".

The Founders of this country, particularly Thomas Jefferson, felt that it was much worse to have a system that sends innocent people to prison, than one that occasionally allows guilty people to go free. Americans, by and large, support this ideal of American liberty, except, of course, when it applies to people that are, like, obviously guilty.

Consider this hypothetical scenario:

Are you screwed? Well, yes, you're at the mercy of the Louisiana justice system! Now, if this weren't a hypothetical case in Louisiana, but a real case in Seminole County, Florida, you'd be in much better shape.

According to an article in the June, 5th Tampa Tribune:

Hundreds of cases involving breath-alcohol tests have been thrown out by Seminole County judges in the past five months because the test's manufacturer will not disclose how the machines work.

All four of Seminole County's criminal judges have been using a standard that if a DUI defendant asks for a key piece of information about how the machine works - its software source code, for instance - and the state cannot provide it, the breath test is rejected, the Orlando Sentinel reported Wednesday.

Not all county court in Florida agree:

Judges in other counties have said the opposite: The state cannot turn over something it does not possess, and the manufacturer should not have to turn over trade secrets.

Well, that settles it! I'm going to Florida!

I see it as nothng less than my civic duty to the people of some Florida counties to sell their Sheriffs my amazing new hand-held Guiltolyzer™ for the low-low price of every dime they have. When aimed at a perp over any distance, the Guiltolyzer™'s space-age technology detects subtle cues that unambiguously indicate guilt. Without the need for costly "jury trials," a crime-ridden county can recoup the cost of the unit in just one month!

Did I say cost? I mean "first payment." I think I'm charging too little for this. It's a judicial miracle, really.

But I hear you ask,"Does this really work?" Of course it does, but the details are a Trade Secret!*.

Now, stop asking that.

The Guiltolyzer™: lightening the burden of proof since, oh, 500 B.C. Yeah, that's it, 500 B.C.

Epilogue:

One of the principles underlying the use of "Free Software" (also called "Open Source Software") is that confidence in the integrity of a software system can only be established if the implementation details are fully visible.

This means that you must be able to review the source code. Although critics promote the idea that "what you don't know can't hurt you," the Open Source browser, FireFox, is rapidly eroding the market share of the closed-source Internet Explorer on the basis of FireFox's superior security.

Touch-screen voting machines and now the Breathalyzer case have demonstrated that the risks of closed-source software extend beyond the technical realm. Really, closed-source software is potentially dangerous wherever technology introduces risk, whether it's browser bugs that enable computer viruses, or unverifiable vote counts reported from a "touch-screen" machine.

None of this would come as any surprise to Richard Stallman, who has been promoting this awareness for years. Stallman is pretty eccentric, and sometimes he seems to be lost in his own world.

I never understood, for example, why he hated the term "Open Source" so much, insisting that the term "Free Software" be used exclusively. Wasn't it good that Free Software is gaining acceptance in corporate boardrooms thanks to the alternate "Open Source" label?

The argument is that label "Open Source," describes an economic and technical attribute of some software, but "Free Software" descibed an ethical attribute. "Free Software" is about freedom, not about cost. It's becoming clear that Stallman was not splitting hairs, and that his priorities are right where everyone's should be: Freedom is more important than commerce, in fact it is a prerequisite.

Steve Balmer, co-founder of Microsoft, attacked "Open Source" as anti-American in statements to a Congressional committee a few years ago. He isn't alone in lobbing that smear. I was baffled at this accusation, at the time.

Obviously, Balmer wanted to do anything he could to thwart the growth of Free Software use, and FireFox's exploding popularity is an example of exactly why. But labeling Free Software "un-American" struck me as a pathetic appeal to the outdated sensibilities of the Soviet-era cold war.

Now I get it.

It goes beyond profits and market dominance. It's about control. It the last ditch effort of that jealous preisthood we know as "The Military Industrial Complex" to maintain some control on the information processing and computing activites of average consumers.

The Department of Homeland Security had its first big bust last week. They arrested computer geeks trading pirated digital copies of the new Star Wars film.

Once the growing audience of blog-readers develops the capacity to discern quality information from fucking right-wing drivel — ahem — we may see a major shift toward individual political power. We've already seen a decade of technological attacks on our freedoms, such as the DCMA. These goal of these attacks isn't to dimish our access to technology itself, but to make that technology toothless enough to limit our ability to access and distribute information.

There's one thing you won't hear Bush mention in the "ownership society" and thats the national dialog. The national dialog is not something the crypto-fascists want anyone but themselves to own, because once it becomes the recognized property of the citizens, not the media or the political parties, the scam ends.

We may yet see a day when the propagandists are forced to promote their lies door to door because there won't be a public venue in which brazen dishonesty will endure.

Except churches.

And the Republican National Convention.

*Important Disclaimers:

  1. The Guiltolyzer™ only detects guilty people, so don't point it at innocent people.

  2. Due to limitations in its detection system, the Guiltolyzer™ may not work on Michael Jackson.

  3. The Guiltolyzer™ may not report accurate results when pointed at certain Republican politicians, such as Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Clarance Thomas or Alan Keyes, among others.

Posted by Winston Smith at 03:53 AM | Comments (0)

June 07, 2005

WaPo Poll: Americans Not Safer After Iraq War

Well, the numbers of dead soldiers are finally registering in the Red States. And the news is not good for Shrub and the Chickenhawks. A majority of Americans think the Iraq War has not made us safer in the "War on Terror".

For the first time since the war in Iraq began, over half of the American public believes the fight there has not made the United States safer, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

While the focus in Washington has shifted from the Iraq conflict to Social Security and other domestic matters, the survey found that Americans rank Iraq second only to the economy in importance -- and that many are losing patience with the enterprise.

Nearly three quarters of Americans say the number of casualties in Iraq is unacceptable, while two-thirds say the U.S. military there is bogged down and nearly six in 10 say the war was not worth fighting -- in all three cases matching or exceeding the highest levels of pessimism yet recorded. More than four in ten now believe the U.S. presence in Iraq is becoming analogous to the experience in Vietnam.

Perhaps most ominously, 52 percent said the war in Iraq has not contributed to the long-term security of the United States, while 47 percent said it did. It was the first time a majority of Americans disagreed with the central notion President Bush has offered to build support for war: that the fight there will make Americans safer from terrorists at home. In late 2003, 62 percent thought the Iraq war aided U.S. security, and just three months ago 52 percent thought so.

Overall, more than half-- 52 percent -- disapprove of how Bush is handling his job. A somewhat larger majority-56 percent-- disapproved of Republicans in Congress and an identical proportion disapproved of Democrats.

However, there were signs that Bush and Republicans in Congress were receiving more of the blame for the recent standoffs over such issues as Bush's judicial nominees and Social Security. Six in ten respondents said Bush and GOP leaders are not making good progress on the nation's problems; of those, 67 percent blamed the president and Republicans while 13 percent blamed congressional Democrats. For the first time, a majority, 55 percent, also said Bush has done more to divide the country than to unite it.

Remember, he's a uniter (of Islamic fundamentalists) and not a divider (of Americans). If only these poll numbers would mean that a turn over in the Congress was emminent in 2006. If only.

Look for Karl Rove's hand in voter fraud on a scale heretofor unimagined in 2006. It's the only way they can stay in power without declaring martial law.

Posted by Steven at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)

Bush Era Ethics: Gansta Intimidation of Whistle-Blowers

Remember when every bad thing that happened during the Clinton Years was personally his fault? Well, we're applying that standard today. A whistle-blower from Los Alamos labs was beaten nearly to death and told to "keep his mouth shut." This sure sounds like the kind of gangster-level malevolence the Rethuglicans would do, doesn't it? I wonder if the President himself ordered the "hit".

A Los Alamos lab whistle-blower scheduled to testify before Congress was badly beaten in an attack outside a Santa Fe bar.

Tommy Hook was in a hospital recovering from a fractured jaw and other injuries, his wife, Susan Hook, said Monday.

Hook's wife and his lawyer believe the attack was designed to keep him quiet.

Susan Hook said the assailants told her husband during the attack early Sunday that "if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut."

Tommy Hook has a pending lawsuit against the University of California alleging whistle-blower retaliation. He had been scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee later this month about alleged financial irregularities at the nuclear weapons lab.

Police and the FBI said they are investigating.

According to Hook's wife, the 52-year-old lab employee got a telephone call late Saturday night -- after he was already in bed -- wanting to meet with him at a Santa Fe bar about 45 minutes from their home.

She said her husband told her the man never showed up, but as he was leaving the topless bar's parking lot, a group of men pulled him from his car and beat him.

"They left him in the parking lot for dead," Hook's lawyer, Robert Rothstein, said Monday at a news conference where pictures of Hook's bruised and swollen face were passed around.

His wife, who sobbed when the pictures were distributed, said the attackers "beat him up with their feet first, because he has shoe marks on his face, and then used their fists."

Remember, we're just using the GOP's own standards here in blaming the guy at the top.

Posted by Steven at 08:47 PM | Comments (0)

The Great Theocracy of Texas

Kevin Drum pointed out a family tragedy that only Texas could create.

This is the intersection of stupid kids, stupid laws, mendacious legislators, and fanatical prosecutors. It's what happens when states ban access to otherwise legal abortions and kids don't know where to turn. And if circumstances and the law had been slightly different, Bauereiss probably would have prosecuted Erica Basoria too and sought the death penalty for both.

It's like living under the Ayatollahs in Iran. It's simple barbarism.

Read the article to see what he is talking about. It's not for the squeemish, but it's 100% Texas horror, legislative style.

I'm so ashamed of my home state; this is truely becoming a Theocracy.

Posted by Steven at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2005

Idiocy Roundup #200

There were some things that I was going to blog about, but Democratic Underground got them all in todays, Top 10 Conservative Idiots. This issue is their 200th edition of the Top 10, and it's a really gem. Congrats DU!

Posted by Winston Smith at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

June 05, 2005

Biden Got Balls

Sen. Joseph Biden called for ending the detention center at Gitmo.

Democrat Senator Joseph Biden said the controversy over the camp put Americans at risk from terrorism rather than protecting them from it.

He said the camp's future needed to be examined.

Hundreds of alleged terrorism suspects have been held at the camp without charge for up to three years.

...

Guantanamo "has become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world and it is unnecessary to be in that position", Mr Biden said.

"We should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners," he told ABC's This Week programme.

"Those that we have reason to keep, keep. And those we don't, let go."

Since many kept at Gitmo appear to be little more than random Afghanis provided to us for a bounty (paid to the Afghan "warlords"), we really have a twisted kind of slave camp in Cuba instead of a tool in the "War on Terror". What a fantastic tool for Al Qaeda to use against us.

As always, nice shoot'n, Tex.

Posted by Steven at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)

June 03, 2005

Required Reading

No doubt pausing to wipe copious quantities of foam from their mouths, the right-wing brain trust at Human Events Online has compile a list of the "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries."

Some of them are relatively uncontroversial. Mein Kampf? Harmful. Das Capital? Certainly, not helpful. Mao's little red book? Well, Mao was an asshole, but hold on a second. Not everything in that book is monsterous. The HEO blurb provides this Mao quote as evidence of his great harmfulness: "It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism." What an awful guy. Everyone knows that it's the task of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism. Now if leftists like Mao would just sit back and let them take care of it...

Anyway, some of the books are controversial, and some are a bit dated (Freud's original work, comes to mind), but many of them have done good — often much more good — as well as harm. Some of them haven't even done any harm, such as Darwin's books, unless you consider advancing our scientific understanding of the world to be harmful.

Posted by Winston Smith at 02:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Who Will Keep Us Safe From Rumsfeld?

OK, no one ever said that there were "no WMDs in Iraq, ever," just that what had been there had been destroyed or placed under effective monitoring. Now, according to drooling Bush fanboys and the stallwart troops of the 101st Keyboard Brigade, we went to Iraq to keep supposed "stockpiles" of WMD materials from falling into the hands of terrorists — not for oil!

It should be no surprise that we stormed the country, left all depots of dangerous materials unguarded and turned the oil ministry building into a fortress. I mean, these are obvious tactical moves if you want to keep CBW materials out of terrorists hands and don't really care about the oil. Do I even need to point this out, people? No, I didn't think so.

Not only have we replaced Saddam Hussein's faux Parliamentary Democracy and its legacy of killing and torture, with George Bush's faux Parliamentary Democracy and its new, improved legacy of killing and torture, but we've also kept U.N. weapons inspectors from doing their job, just like dear old Saddam did.

Undeterred, however, UNMOVIC staff have been doing their best to keep tabs on sites containing CBW materials or manufacturing equipment. They are unhappy to report, that at this point, U.S. the occupation has permitted equipment to be looted from 109 sites and rising!

Let me summarize. Before the war: Iraq WMDs under watchful eyes. After the war: Iraq WMDs in unknown hands. Neat!

Posted by Winston Smith at 01:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Al-Zarqawi Dead?

Italian news site ADN Kronos International has published a report that Al Qaeda's main man in Iraq, Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, died on Friday.

Did he? Dunno. If he did, will it make a damn bit of difference? My prediction: No.

Posted by Winston Smith at 01:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 01, 2005

HP + Fascism

Oh goody. HP has jumped into the National ID fray with a "standards-based" solution built on Microsoft's proprietary .NET framework. This is certain to be a great boon to everybody, if, by "everybody," you mean HP and Microsoft.

Posted by Winston Smith at 04:04 PM | Comments (0)

Forget Nixon! We've Got Bigger Problems!

OK, move along, nothing to see here. Nixon resigned over 30 years ago and it's about time we got back to dealing with the crisis that looms over America today.

Of course, I'm talking about homosexuals.

The good ol' American Family Association, headed by Dr. Donald "Evil" Wildmon, has finally lifted their boycott on Disney. I'm not sure why, because as far as I can tell, Disney hasn't budged on their gay-friendly policies. The AFA is now setting their sites — with what we can only hope will be an equally failed initiative — on the venerable Ford Motor Company.

Buy American? Nah! Boycott Ford!

My prediction is that the AFA's most visible legacy will be that "fucktard" makes it into the dictionary.

Posted by Winston Smith at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack