Chomsky: media, government, truth

Something we should all think about: Zinn on human nature and war

Happy Birthday Gorni Kramer

Gorni Kramer is on accordian. I'll be honest, I'd never heard of Gorni Kramer until I saw his name on a list of jazz musicians who's birthdays are today.

This is REALLY funny though.

Texas state bird: the mosquito

I don't know what species of mosquito this is, but they scare the hell out of me.

Summer rain brings monsters.

I'm addicted to this song

Fox finally owns up to bin Laden's health

Last night my dad was watching the Astros game. During the commerical breaks he would click upwards one station (eerily convenient for most Southern sports fans' interest) to the Fox News Channel. As I walked in to the kitchen to adorn my pallent with tuna, I heard in the background something that I have known for a few years now: Osama bin Laden is extremely ill and is treated regularly with dialysis!

Apparently bin Laden is now requesting that his followers pray dilligently for his health, but for some odd reason I suspect that maybe Fox News is just a little late on mentioning this fact. Its not that he's gotten worse or recently got sick in the first place, its that this old information is somehow convenient for Fox News now, or perhaps the White House finally acknowledged bin Laden's condition so Fox routinely fell in line regardless whether they think its important.

It definately is important. It was important back in 2002 when Jello Biafra was talking about it in his spoken word performances. It was important when Michael Moore wrote about it in his book, Dude Where's My Country, in 2003. But now that news is credible beyond a shadow of a doubt because the White House or Fox News, whichever was first, has reported it.

Thanks for the info, Fox. Now everyone will finally believe that the big bad warewolf of 9/11 is on dialysis and is therefore not possibly hidden in the caves of Afghanistan or any caves at all, for that matter. When on earth will we ever find that mad man?

Life at the Plant

Yesterday I carried out my assignment of replacing the nozzels at each fire hose station in the power block. See, most of them had this red plastic nozzel and they found out recently (the hard way) that plastic nozzels can wear out and shoot off and hit someone in the head and injure them pretty badly. So they bought these new brass ones. I had to go into the insane maze of this multi-story, steel grated mass of power plant and find all the fire hose stations...with a map that wasn't too user friendly.

I know I just made that sound kinda shitty, but it was actually a lot of fun. It was essentially very easy: just walk to the stations with a bucket full of new nozzels and replace the old dangerous ones (they screw on and off, a monkey could do it...) . The hard part was finding them all, but at least the weird industrial scenery (complete with my hard had, goggles, ear plugs, and steal toe boots) was much cooler than my friend's job at Popeye's.

In my head I kept repeating, and believing: "Beats the hell out of flippin' burgers and dealing with customers!"

I'm a workin' man

I started working at my dad's power plant yesterday: AES Deepwater in Pasadena, Texas (where else?). Yes, I am very much a part of the problem for a change. Needed some variety I guess, but really just desperately need my own money as to not put my parents into debt.

They've got a summer program for college students. They're gonna hook me up with a mowing tractor and I'm gonna bascially be the groundskeeper of this area that they recently bought. I also get to use a forklift!!

Everyone has to have a hard hat and safety glasses and wear ear protection and steel toe boots and I got a bunch of petroleum coke on my hands today and felt like a badass factory worker. Even though I'm just a summer temp. Haha. But I changed the HELL out of them hose nosels!

A wake up call about illegal immigration from Mexico's elections

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

Mexican expatriate voters hindered in U.S.

[...]

Apathy also was an issue. Some said that they came to the United States because Mexican governments had failed to create economic opportunities at home, and that they didn't see that changing anytime soon.

clickhereforallofit

That sentence that I bolded, enlarged, and italicized is the root of the problem of illegal immigration. Our government does absolutely nothing to stop it either, in fact, these "free trade" agreements that the Bush Administration touts so proudly are what causes that situation. "Free trade" means allowing corporations to go into foreign lands where they'll exploit poor people's labor with no penatly (thats the "freedom" of "free trade", freedom to exploit for the sake of profits).

Our president and Mexico's current president, Vicente Fox, are completely on the same page when it comes to economics, and thats what is causing the corruption in all the Latin American countries where we've installed and/or supported right wing governments who sign with our "free trade" agreements. Migrant workers flee Latin America because they can make more money if they're exploited in America rather than being exploited in their native countries, not to mention the social services that are available (and should be).

My church's new pastor claims an attack on Bush's "Faith Based Initiatives"

I go to church pretty much every Sunday. I've been going to Highlands United Methodist Church for my whole 18 years of existence.

We recently got a new pastor.

Today her sermon was about how "our church's history is America's history". She later got around to talking about how politicians try to "bump down religion" at every chance that they get, and told us about how the government "shut down" this rehabilitation facility because it was Christian and therefore unconstitutionally receiving federal funding. She called this a "huge blow on President Bush's Faith Based Initiatives", and said that the government did not replace the program with anything that was as effective at keeping ex-inmates out of prison.

I'll give her that; it definately was a blow to Bush's Faith Based Initiatives, but why can't the rehab facitlity simply become a private establishment? The government can't fund it, or own it, but that doesn't mean that the place can't exist. Being a religious establishment, how hard would it be to get donations from church's all over the country, especially with this supposed success in keeping ex-criminals from committing more crimes after they're released? With a success story such as that, what church wouldn't want to take constant donations for that establishment?

All of a sudden the government should be there to help, as long as its a church and not just some lazy "welfare queen" who abuses the system. You can help yourself, but we can't.