Obama Doesn't Plan to End the Occupation in Iraq

FINALLY from Alternet.org:

The New York Times is reporting an "apparent evolution" in president-elect Barack Obama's thinking on Iraq, citing recent statements about his plan to keep a "residual force" in the country

[...]

It's an interesting choice of terms. "Residual" is defined as "the quantity left over at the end of a process." This means that the forces Obama plans to leave in Iraq will remain after he has completed his "withdrawal" plan. No matter how Obama chooses to label the forces he keeps in Iraq, the fact is, they will be occupation forces.

click here for all of it

It's funny (or not) how everything Obama is doing now was so plainly foreseeable during the campaign, but the liberal blogosphere pretended it wasn't, and you couldn't vote for Nader this time, couldn't even talk about him. We couldn't have "another Bush" in the White House. So we'll settle with another Clinton in the White House instead? Clinton was a better Republican than George Bush! He gave us NAFTA, maintained a bloated military budget and made sure we kicked some brown people's asses in Kosovo while cutting aid to poor people at home. Now, I realize that anything would be better than Bush right about now, but you can't call this real "change," other than the fact that Obama is (half) black.

It just seems like a lot of liberals were just waiting until Obama got elected before they would actually pay attention to his actions. Now he owes us nothing.

(Oh, and this is completely in line with everything that that "crazy, unviable, conspiracy theorist" Ralph Nader was saying during the campaign, once again)

Don't Attack Iran

The November 5th Movement

November5.org:



November 5. 2008 from Tarek Milleron on Vimeo.

That's what I'm talkin' about.

Feet. Fire.

Barack Obama is the president elect: IT IS TIME FOR PROGRESSIVES TO GET SERIOUS

We progressives finally got something that feels good: a victory. Or so it seems.

Sure, it's really awesome to have a black president (elect), but we can't forget that he DID NOT MAKE ANY PROGRESSIVE PROMISES during his campaign.

All you Obama voters: he doesn't owe you anything!

We MUST demand real change from our newly elected leaders, or else they will turn into another Clintonian Republicratic corporate regime who may perhaps balance the budget, but also cut social programs and keep the military budget bloated in the process. And what are they going to do about the war? Nothing, unless we act. The People ended the Vietnam War, we ended the first Gulf War and we can end this one the same way. Now more than ever, we've got the chance to get our troops OUT of Iraq.

We've got a chance to get gay marriage legalized in more states.

We've got a chance to reform the health care system.

We've got a chance to crack down on corporate crime and promote fair trade,

but WE HAVE TO ACT.

and I mean ACT, like get outside, show our faces, raise our voices, sign real petitions with real ink and write real letters to real congressmen. We cannot sit back and wait for these Democrats to do the right thing on their own: THEY'VE NEVER EVER DONE THAT.

The time is now, and WE CAN DO IT.

Steal Back Your Vote

Greg Palast is involved with a project right now called Steal Back Your Vote. He's trying to get the word out about how the same types of people who rigged the last two elections are at it again. I'm on Greg's mailing list and here's some info from the latest one:

Odd thing about the 207 voters of precinct 999 in Dona Ana County, New Mexico.

Not a single one could choose between George Bush and John Kerry in 2004.

Or at least that’s what their ballots said.

The Secretary of State at the time told me, “Some of those people just can’t make up their minds.” Dirt-poor Dona Ana is 63% Hispanic and the precinct is made up entirely of overseas voters, mostly the Chicano soldiers in Iraq or on duty. The machines say that Hispanic soldiers don’t care who becomes their commander-in-chief.

Or maybe, the machines failed to register their votes.

Few Americans realize that in 2004, 1,389,231 ballots were never counted because they were “spoiled.” How do ballots spoil? They get left out of the ‘fridge?

Here’s an unfun fact: not everyone’s vote spoils the same. The U.S. Civil Rights Commission found that the chances of an African-American voter losing their vote is 900% higher than a white voter. Hispanic votes vanished at a rate 500% higher than Anglo votes.

www.StealBackYourVote.org

(emphasis mine)

If anyone's going to spoil this election, it's not going to be Ralph Nader, it's going to be essentially the Republican party, more specifically their cronies in the election system.

Now onto researching Diebold.

Debatable Debates / MoveOn delusions

Debatable Debates
by Ralph Nader

This past spring, the foreign affairs reporters, not columnists, for the New York Times and the Washington Post concluded that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are advancing foreign and military policies similar to those adopted by George W. Bush in his second term.

Where then is the “hope” and “change” from the junior Senator from Illinois?

Moreover, both Obama and McCain want more nuclear power plants, more coal production, and more offshore oil drilling.

[...]

Both support the gigantic taxpayer funded Wall Street bailout, without expressed amendments. Both support the notorious Patriot Act, the revised FISA act which opened the door to spy on Americans without judicial approval, and Obama agrees with McCain in vigorously opposing the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

go to nader.org for the rest

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MoveOn delusions

I'm a "member" of Moveon.org, in that, they send me emails and call me a "member." I've given them a total of like $3.

Here's a quote from the latest email they've sent:

TOP 5 REASONS OBAMA SUPPORTERS SHOULDN'T REST EASY

1. The polls may be wrong. This is an unprecedented election. No one knows how racism may affect what voters tell pollsters—or what they do in the voting booth. And the polls are narrowing anyway. In the last few days, John McCain has gained ground in most national polls, as his campaign has gone even more negative.

2. Dirty tricks. Republicans are already illegally purging voters from the rolls in some states. They're whipping up hysteria over ACORN to justify more challenges to new voters. Misleading flyers about the voting process have started appearing in black neighborhoods. And of course, many counties still use unsecure voting machines.

3. October surprise. In politics, 15 days is a long time. The next McCain smear could dominate the news for a week. There could be a crisis with Iran, or Bin Laden could release another tape, or worse.

4. Those who forget history... In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote after trailing by seven points in the final days of the race. In 1980, Reagan was eight points down in the polls in late October and came back to win. Races can shift—fast!

5. Landslide. Even with Barack Obama in the White House, passing universal health care and a new clean-energy policy is going to be hard. Insurance, drug and oil companies will fight us every step of the way. We need the kind of landslide that will give Barack a huge mandate.

Yeah it's going to be REALLY hard to pass universal health care when HE'S NOT RUNNING ON THAT TO BEGIN WITH! Barack Obama is not our liberal savior, he's a Democrat. He's a Democrat. He's a Democrat. He hasn't even promised to fight for universal or truly clean energy during his campaign, so it wouldn't just be the big oil and pharmaceutical companies we have to fight, we'd have to fight Obama as well. Just like the rest of the Democrats, if you vote for them just for the fact that they have a chance of winning and you're a liberal and the GOP is "way worse," they're not going to owe you a damn thing if they get into office. The mandate has to be RIGHT NOW.

"BUT HE'S BLACK!!!!!"

Okay, as cool as it would be (or probably will be, but don't rest easy!), to have a (half) black president for once, that's about the entire extent of the "change," Barack Obama would make. Look no further than his voting record, and WHAT HE ACTUALLY SAYS!

As I recall from the piece of shit, canned "town hall" debate, Obama's all for drilling and keeping our military very much present in the middle east (as the Nader article notes as well). Where's the change in that? Chump change, that's what that is.

Chump change.

It's Already Stolen

From Rolling Stone, courtesy of Greg Palast:

According to an investigative report out today in
Rolling Stone magazine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, after a year-long investigation, reveal a systematic program of "GOP vote tampering" on a massive scale.

- Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado
have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls.

Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state's rate of removal.

- While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush.

Kennedy, a voting rights lawyer, charges this is a resurgence of
'Jim Crow' tactics to wrongly block Black and Hispanic voters.

- A fired US prosecutor levels new charges - accusing leaders of his own party, Republicans, with criminal acts in an attempt to block legal voters as
"fraudulent."

- Digging through government records, the Kennedy-Palast team discovered that, in 2004, a GOP scheme called "caging” ultimately took away the rights of 1.1 million voters. The Rolling Stone duo predict that, this November 4, it will be far worse.


(no link to more, must buy a copy of Rolling Stone)

I fully expect Obama to win but I also fully expect many of his potential supporters to basically be blacklisted, pretty literally.

Meanwhile, conservatives rail away about ACORN, exaggerating their "fraud," trying to deflect attention away from the real disenfranchisement that's been going on since 2000 and probably before then.

Fuck Ron Paul

Houston Chronicle, courtesy of RealArt:

Some Galveston officials aren't too pleased with
their congressional representative, Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, for voting against
the $22.8 billion disaster recovery aid package on Wednesday.

[...]

"We've worked hard all our lives," said Gene Lossow.
"We take care of ourselves. I don't need FEMA or anything else. We got
insurance."

the rest

It's called an emergency for a FUCKING reason. If Congress can nearly pass a 700 billion dollar bailout for Wall Street, what's another 30 billion for people who NEED IT? Meanwhile dumbfucks like this Gene Lossow guy and way too many people on this articles comment board say, "Deal with it mutherfuckers! I gots my insurance!"

Behind The Deregulatory Curtain

By Ralph Nader:

Indeed, the right-wing pundits and the revisionists in
Congress are spending an inordinate amount of time falsely claiming that our nation’s current financial disaster stems from the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. The primary purpose of this modest law is to require banks to report on where and to whom they are making loans. Community organizations have used the data produced as a result of this law to determine if banks were meeting their lending obligations in the minority and lower-income communities in which they do business. Congress passed this law because too many lenders were discriminating against minority borrowers. “Redlining” was the name given to the practice by banks of literally drawing a red line around minority areas and then
proceeding to deny people within the red border home loans – even if they were otherwise qualified. The law has been in place for 30 years, but the right-wing f ringe claims it somehow is responsible for predatory lending practices that date back just to the beginning of this decade.

click here for the whole thing

Dont' let anyone tell you this Wall Street meltdown was a result of regulation rather than deregulation.

Nadercide

I've been supporting Nader ever since Kucinich was out of the Dem race.

I've been trying to organize people on my campus who support Ralph. I saw him speak at Tulane the other day (had to skip a class).

And the more people that learn about my support for Nader, the less people are talking to me. Their demeanor changes. I call it Nadercide.

I'm standing strong though. Once Obama wins, they'll realize how stupid their contempt for my candidate was.

Hopefully.

Fight For Workers' Rights [new Nader article]

By Ralph Nader:

Last year I issued a Labor Day statement noting that the Taft-Hartley Act, one of the great blows to American democracy, had been in effect for 60 years.

[...]

Union officials should speak out for abolition of Taft-Hartley, and not concede this monumental employer usurpation of worker rights.

[...]

Consider the following:

· S&P 500 CEOs now make about 344 times more than the average worker at their firms.

· The top fifth of households own more than 84.7 percent of the nation’s wealth, the middle fifth percent less than 3.8 percent of the nation's wealth.

· The percent of wealth owned and controlled by the wealthiest 1 percent of households, now equals that of the bottom 92 percent.

· Women and minority males earn 69 percent to 80 percent of what White men make.

In addition, more than a third of single mothers with children live in poverty.

Repealing Taft-Hartley would certainly help workers to organize for better wages and working conditions. The fight would be monumental, but so would the gains.

click here for all of it

Last week I was watching the daily rain forecast on some local news station in New Orleans, you know where they show the little picture of the weather conditions for each day of the week? On labor day it had this little picture of a station wagon with a canoe on top. Supposedly, Labor Day is just about not being at work and therefore having time to do something fun, like canoeing. How about a graphic of the Haymarket riots? Or a picket line or something? People literally fought and, yes, put their lives on the line to get labor rights. It's more than just an off day from work and school.

Palin declares holy war

Straight from the AP news feed on Yahoo's front page:

"Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

click here for the whole article

I had a pastor once at my Methodist church who said that when we use terms like "God bless America" in the context of "support our troops," we're essentially declaring holy war. Is that what "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is all about? I didn't think it was. If it is, I'm even more against in than I was before.

Keep in mind, a holy war is how "them there terrorists" see it. Are we above them or not?

My bad

Yeah, my last post was about breaking up with my girlfriend. This one is about how we got back together.

I kinda flipped out because school was getting closer and I just wanted to go this semester alone. But we talked about what was bothering me and we're gonna try to make it work.

and I'm happier this way.

A weird, sad day

I broke up with my girlfriend of 2 years last night.

To say the least, it was the hardest decision I've ever made. I never thought I'd be on the giving end of such heartbreak. It's definitely not my thing. It hurt so much to hurt her like that.

It was a problem with committments. I've been trying to commit to so many people since I went off to college: my parents, my bandmates, my teachers, my girlfriend. In the end I was just giving 10% to everyone. Couldn't keep all my promises or anything like that.

What's keeping me going right now is the fact that we'll both move on and be fine with this sooner than we think. I've had people close to me get their hearts broken really bad. I remember a good friend of mine punching himself in the face repeatedly in front of his ex and her new bo. He really did not want to live without her. But he moved on. Both of my older siblings had high school sweet hearts who everyone just knew they were going to marry. Needless to say, neither of them are with those people. They moved on though, and they're both very happy people and in two very different ways.

Still, it hurt like bloody fucking hell walking out on her.

I quote Elvis Costello:

I'm so used to doin' everything with you
plannin' everything for two
but now that we're through
I just don't know what to do with myself

I'm really sorry, Cassie.

Minimum wage increases next month

The Democrap's greatest achievement (not) since the '06 election: raising the minimum wage, hits its next benchmark next week. On July 24th, all non-tip earning US workers must be paid a minimum of $6.55 an hour.

Aren't you just so excited?

You can so live off of that, huh?

Oo, and next year it goes up to $7.25, how will we manage??

Anyway, sorry I haven't blogged in a month Ron and John. I know you guys just sit on the edge of your computer chairs waiting for me to update this extraordinary page. All self-hate aside, I've been SUPER busy with work and trying to make The Drafted known in Houston.

But back to the minimum wage: Ralph Nader proposes the minimum wage be raised to $10 an hour. 'Nuff said home skillet. Speaking of him, he posted a new article recently, go to Nader.org and read it. Heck I guess I'll post some of it soon.

From nader.org:

The big time gamblers are on Wall Street and they are gambling with your money, your pensions, and your livelihoods.

Unlike Las Vegas casinos, these big investment banks, commercial banks and stock brokerage houses are supposed to have a fiduciary relationship with your money. They are supposed to be trustees for the money you have given them to safeguard, and tell you when they are making risky investments.

Because Washington, D.C. has increasingly become corporate-occupied territory, the Wall Street Boys have been taking even greater risks with your money. The more they produce cycles of financial failure, the more they pay themselves through their rubberstamp boards of directors.


[...]

Still, there is no regulatory action in Washington which doesn’t even move on behalf of consumers to regulate the New York Mercantile Exchange where rampant speculation, not supply and demand, decides what you are paying for gasoline and heating oil.

click here for the whole thing

I meant to post this back when it was new but I've been pretty busy with work, more so than when I was at school, which I guess is a good thing

Anyway, you're paying more and more for gas because of rich people. Be angry.

John McCain's Gramm Gamble

By Patricia Kilday Hart of the Texas Observer:

In the early evening of Friday, December 15, 2000, with Christmas break only hours away, the U.S. Senate rushed to pass an essential, 11,000-page government reauthorization bill. In what one legal textbook would later call “a stunning departure from normal legislative practice,” the Senate tacked on a complex, 262-page amendment at the urging of Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.

[...]

Gramm promised that the amendment—also known as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act—along with other landmark legislation he had authored, would usher in a new era for the U.S. financial services industry.

[...]

Gramm created what Wall Street analysts now refer to as the “shadow banking system,” an industry that operates outside any government oversight, but, as witnessed by the Bear Stearns debacle, requiring rescue by taxpayers to avert a national economic catastrophe.

[...]

Gramm serves as co-chair of the McCain 2008 presidential campaign. As one of the candidate’s chief economic advisers, he is mentioned as a possible secretary of the treasury in a McCain administration.

click here for all of it

Basically, one of the main guys whose responsible for our screwed up economy, the man who enthusiastically made it possible for corporations to run rampant at the publics' expense: good friend of John McCain, co-chair of his campaign.

Will the mainstream media point this out? Doubtful. They surely won't emphasize how TOXIC Gramm has been to our economy. In fact, I guarantee you they're going to spin it as if Gramm's policies had no effect on the economy whatsoever, they'll just blame it on the terrorists or something. That is, if they ever mention his name at all.

I'm not supporting Obama or anything, but for the love of God: don't vote for McCain.

No, really. Don't vote for John McCain.

The Muffs

A long time ago my brother and I tuned in to 91.7 ktru Houston (Rice University's station) and they were playing this punk/garage set. We caught the latter half of a song that was obviously called "Oh Nina." I was enthralled with this song. The chorus was so infectious to me I just couldn't stand it; the raunchy female vocals strummed my newfound punk rock heartstrings with a strength they hadn't yet felt before. The song haunted and alluded me for years, as I didn't catch the name of the group who performed it. I never even heard the song again or found out who played it until literally about five minutes ago. Funny thing is, I've known about the Muffs for a while but never bothered to check them out.

Without further adieu, I give you The Muffs and "Oh Nina":



..and here's some Wiki info:

After releasing their initial 7" EPs and singles independently and on local labels, The Muffs signed to Warner Bros. Records in the early '90s. After the release of their first album, Warner Brothers failed to promote the band. In spite of this the Muffs set the stage for the success of bands like Green Day, and producer Rob Cavallo. Despite the wide exposure afforded by appearing on a wide variety of movie soundtracks (Clueless director Amy Heckerling, in particular, had taken a keen interest in their songs) as well as a lucrative Fruitopia commercial, The Muffs were eventually dropped from the label. The Muffs have since continued to release new records on various independent labels.

Baytown, Texas has a curb-side recycling program!

From the Baytown Sun:

“We’re really anxious to get it started,” deputy city manager Bob Leiper said of the long-awaited curbside recycling program that kicks off next week.

Baytown City Council members unanimously approved the program in January and the purchase of 21,000 18-gallon plastic tubs that will hold residents’ newspapers, plastics 1 and 2, (labels can be found on the bottom of bottles), and aluminum cans until they can be picked up and sorted.

click here for the whole thing

OH MY GOD I had no idea about this program until today, when I found this article at the Baytown Sun's website. Curbside recycling makes Baytown like a hundred points cooler in my book. It costs residents only $2.25 a month to get their recyclables picked up by Waste Management, according to this article. Supposedly it was originally going to cost $2.50 but Bayer Material Science supposedly purchased the recycling bins for the city and that brought down the monthly cost by $.50.

Now all we gotta do is petition Exxon and Shell to start getting serious about alternative fuels.

This Brave Nation: new documentary

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I'm working back at the power plant again with my dad, making money for school. My band is also kinda busy trying to learn some new material and record and recruit a new sub bass player.

Anyshways, there's a cool new documentary by Brave New Films called This Brave Nation and you can watch it at this website.

War profiteering

By Greg Palast:

In 1928, oil company chieftains (from Anglo-Persian Oil, now British Petroleum, from Standard Oil, now Exxon, and their Continental counterparts) were faced with a crisis: falling prices due to rising supplies of oil; the same crisis faced by their successors during the Clinton years, when oil traded at $22 a barrel.

The solution then, as now: stop the flow of oil, squeeze the market, raise the price. The method: put a red line around Iraq and declare that virtually all the oil under its sands would remain there, untapped. Their plan: choke supply, raise prices rise, boost profits. That was the program for 1928. For 2003. For 2008.

[...]

In response, Senators Obama and Clinton propose something wrongly called a “windfall” profits tax on oil. But oil industry profits didn’t blow in on a breeze. It is war, not wind, that fills their coffers. The beastly leap in prices is nothing but war profiteering, hiking prices to take cruel advantage of oil fields shut by bullets and blood.

I wish to hell the Democrats would call their plan what it is: A war profiteering tax. War is profitable business – if you’re an oil man. But somehow, the public pays the price, at the pump and at the funerals, and the oil companies reap the benefits.

click here for the whole article

Thing is, it's not enough just to demand that gasoline be cheaper and that those who profit so much be taxed for their greed. We need a whole new fucking system. We need a new way to fuel and power our cars and our homes. There's got to be a push for a fundamental change in how we get energy.

Search for "Nikola Tesla" on YouTube and check out some of the vidoes that come up. Seems like conspiracy theory stuff, I know, but some of them are really interesting. Long story short: FREE ENERGY.

Gay Marriage legalized in California

This is really a victory for everyone, not just gays. But I'm not going to explain how. Instead, I will simply post a video I made a long time ago about the subject.

It's called "Gay Marriage: Legalize It":

Could the people on Fox be any dumber?

I don't know who said it, and I don't remember the precise, exact to-the-tee quote, but this is what some idiot said on Fox News this morning:

Diplomacy with Iran would be like throwing a match into a tank of gasoline.

How completely off-the-deep end, stark raving mad do you have to be to think that diplomacy, rather than going to fucking WAR, would be more like throwing fuel to a fire?

Friends don't let friends take Fox seriously.

One Flea Spare

I'm not going to pretend like I know how to review plays.

But I saw one the other day and I feel compelled to promote it.

It's called One Flea Spare, you can get all kinds of info right here.

This play offers all the great offerings a play could offer: sex, drugs, and classical music (not because it's in the public domain and therefore free to use but because it seems to fit the setting). But really, One Flea Spare is a new piece (written by Naomi Wallace) that takes place in England during the Plague and an aristocratic couple gets locked into their home with a couple of peasants: wackiness ensues!! Just kidding, but there are plenty of funny bits, most of them involving the character Kabe (played by Ron Reeder who pretty much stole the show every time he appeared, rock on, bro!).

There's a strong social message in this play, it addresses the main dividing issues between the upper and lower classes, and it does so with very modern style weirdness. Pretty freaking awesome.

If there's just one reason to go out and see it, it's the building. The Convergence Center for the Arts on Magazine Street is COOL, it's like a million years old and has to have some ghosts in it. It looks like you could hide somewhere in the building and just live there in secret forever, go check it out. Also, the play is performed in the middle of the audience on the third floor, it's just really cool vibes all night long baby.


Yeah, One Flea Spare.

Guess what! The surge didn't fucking work.

From The Independent courtesy of Alternet:

U.S. Death Toll in Iraq Hits 7-Month High

The U.S. military death toll has reached a seven-month high as America's war in Iraq enters a new phase -- with its troops primarily engaged in fighting insurgents from the Shia rather than the Sunni community.

click here for the article via Alternet

Oh wait, no, it's because of the liberal media. If them damn liberals in the MEDIA would have acknowledged that the surge worked, it would have boosted morale and Iraq would look like Connecticut right about now! 50,000 more troops and we should be able to git 'er done for good, as long as that there faggot terrorist LIBERAL MEDIA don't hurt the troops' feelings!!!!!!!!!!!1

Wright is Right

Anyone who bitches about Jeremiah Wright after hearing his very name for the first time a grand total of two or three months ago:

shut the fuck up.

How about listen to what he actually says instead of what Fox and NBC say he says? Context. Reality. Stop freaking out after every fucking sound bite you hear on the news, it's DESIGNED to stimulate. Try thinking.

And what the hell does it really have to do with Obama?

Obama was baptized in Wright's church in 1988, after being a religious skeptic for some years. I think it's pretty obvious that he's still a religious skeptic, he just joined a church so he would eventually have a chance at politics, because no president has ever been an atheist or agnostic, and no politician has ever won office with a lot of people knowing they weren't a good, married, Christian straight guy. That's why he joined a church. Hell, if you're going to sit in church every Sunday to make yourself look like a decent guy, you might as well go to a church with an entertaining preacher.

But get this: Reverend Wright isn't crazy. Like, at all, actually. I think about 98% of what he preaches is fricken genius, based on what I've actually heard HIM say.

Weird, weird union stuff

From nader.org:

Andy Stern, the president of the 1.9 million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is embroiled in the politics of accepting sweetheart union contract deals that and, ironically is being condemned by the Wall Street Journal. What gives here?

It seems that Stern wants to put heat on the private equity funds that have bought hospitals, nursing home chains and other firms whose employees he wants to organize.

[...]

The California Nurses Association (CNA) is a fast growing union that fights for patient rights, for adequate nurse-patient ratios and bargains for strong contracts with hospital chains.

[...]

In Ohio, the CNA exposed a SEIU deal with nine hospitals owned by
Catholic Healthcare Partners. SEIU let the employer pick SEIU as its chosen union without a single signed union card. The company-union collaboration scheduled elections.

CNA sent representatives to Ohio and sounded the alarm about a
top-down agreement sealed by a mutually imposed code of silence.

CNA’s actions threw SEIU into a rage. Buses of SEIU people from Ohio were sent by Mr. Stern to break up an annual meeting of 1000 labor activists sponsored by the magazine, Labor Notes, in Dearborn, Michigan. CNA’s Executive Director, RoseAnn DeMoro was scheduled to speak to the assemblage.

Shouting, scuffling, overturned chairs and the arrival of the Dearborn Police to impose order led A.F.L.-C.I.O. president John J. Sweeney, to denounce what he called “a violent attack” orchestrated by SEIU.

click here for the whole thing

I had no idea what the dynamics of American labour were like, with the whole SEIU vs. AFL-CIO partition. I thought those people only existed in Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" ....

Restaurants, Mayors Toast Earth Day with Tap Water

From Corporate Accountability International:

BOSTON – Prominent restaurants and mayors kicked Earth
Day off early this year by cancelling bottled water contracts and instead
promoting local tap water. The move has been part of a nationwide effort, dubbed “Think Outside the Bottle,” that exposes the social and environmental impacts of bottled water.

“Restaurants have always showcased the highest standards of cuisine and new culinary innovations,” said Henry Patterson, owner of The Other Side Café in Boston. “Now we are reducing waste and encouraging more sustainable eating practices when we serve safe, clean and reliable water from the tap instead of its higher priced, bottled alternative .”

click here for the whole thing

Once in a while it's good to think society is actually making some sort of environmental progress.

That's about all I can say.

Matt Gonzales on Democrat complicity in the war

Eight Reasons Our Changing World Will Turn You Into an Environmentalist, Like It or Not

From Alternet.org:

AlterNet picked eight topics -- water, global warming, food, health, energy, pollution, consumption and corporations -- that pose real dangers to the future of human life and selected a series of recent essays that illustrate these problems, along with links to organizations and further resources that address these issues.

click here for the whole thing

I haven't read all of this yet but I think it serves as a decent Earth Day oriented post.

I don't know how much the people of Alternet really know about this but they've certainly done their research in finding people who do. It's awesome how passionate they seem to be about getting the word out about environmental crises.

To toot my own horn, I'll share what's been on my mind recently. I've come to a certain conclusion that wind and solar power are the way to go as far as energy, both for lighting our homes and for powering our cars (solar). Well upon reading some of this Alternet article, I'm probably right. Biofuels not only use up essential resources for human life, they might not be as eco-friendly as some would have you believe. When burned they emit carbon dioxide, which is the same compound that humans exhale, BUT according to my biology professor at UNO (Dr. James Grady) there's already an excess of CO2 in our atmosphere. I don't believe we're going to be helping anything by switching to biofuels to run our internal combustion engines. I honestly think that electronic (battery) and solar powered cars are the only way to help the environment, BUT that's only if we also switch to solar and wind power energy generation.

So before we keep building hybrid cars, or any new cars at that, we need to generate clean energy first, so that when we charge our electric cars in the future, we're not relying on a dirty way of getting that electricity. Just manufacturing a new car, hybrid or not, is dirtier than driving that car for a year (no source, that's just what I've heard). All of the machinery that goes in to manufacturing EVERYTHING needs to be running on solar panels, in factories that are powered by solar and wind plants, NOT coal or nuclear facilities.

That's my two cents.

Bush is in town [here's a new Greg Palast article]

From Gregpalast.net

José Can You See? Bush’s Trojan Taco
By Greg Palast

While you Democrats are pounding each other to a pulp in Pennsylvania,
the President has snuck back down to New Orleans for a meeting of the NAFTA Three: the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico.

[...]

More important, the agenda-makers, the guys who called the meeting, must remain as far out of camera range as possible: The North American
Competitiveness Council.

Never heard of The Council? Well, maybe you’ve heard of the counselors: the chief executives of Wal-Mart, Chevron Oil, Lockheed-Martin and 27 other multinational masters of the corporate universe.

And why did the landlords of our continent order our presidents to a
three-nation pajama party? Their term is “harmonization.”

[...]
Harmonization means making rules and regulations the same in all three
countries. Or, more specifically, watering down rules – on health, safety, labor rights, oil drilling, polluting and so on - in other words, any regulations that get between The Council members and their profits.

click here for the whole thing

I left out a part of the article that says New Orleans still looks like Dresden 1946, which I don't entirely agree with because it's really the outskirts like Chalmette that are still pretty bad, not necessarily New Orleans itself.

Anyway, I overheard that Bush was going to be in town just this morning in the French Market where I work. A few minutes after I found out about this suprise visit, I saw a guy in a car with Ohio plates ride down the street with a bullhorn shouting "George Bush has betrayed the American people!" out the side of the window. Most onlookers thought it was comical, I thought it was awesome. Supposedly he almost hit someone but I didn't see it.

But about the article, it's awesome. Greg Palast is really smart, go read it.

"All done, go home." - IRAQ

Another one from Alternet, an interview with Jonathan Steele, author of Defeat: Why they Lost Iraq:

Also, people expected great things from Americans, things that were perhaps a bit unrealistic -- electricity and water and jobs immediately. But they had the idea, "It's a superpower; they toppled Saddam in three weeks, how come they can't get the electricity going?"

Encapsulating the mood, about three months after the invasion, a graffito appeared on the plinth of the famously toppled Saddam statue. The graffito said, "All done, go home." I think that summed it up. It's the same sentiment I remember hearing on great march of [Shia] pilgrims through Karbala within three or four weeks of the toppling of the statue -- "Thank you, and now goodbye."

click here for the whole thing

I think American discourse often overlooks the fact that a lot of Iraqis, a majority according to most polls I've seen, want the US troops out of their country, now. Most Americans are against the war now, but as far as I can tell there's not much support for a total withdrawal either. The fact that every reason the White House, CIA, and Pentagon gave us to justify the invasion turned out to be total crap should be reason enough to withdraw all troops yesterday. But let's also not forget what most Iraqis actually want.

"Turns out black people don't even want to be white!"

From Alternet:

Last month, it was revealed that the New York Times and Manhattan publishing world were deceived by Love and Consequences, a faked memoir by a white girl who claimed to live the life you only hear about in Dr. Dre songs.

click here for the whole thing nigga

This is an awesome, hilarious review of another phony memoir that earned some liar six figures.

Is there anyone still out there who hasn't seen my racism videos?

Union victory in Houston

From the Texas Observer:

The National Nurses Organizing Committee, née the California Nurses Association, broke through an important barrier last month. On March 28, a majority of participating nurses at the Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center voted to let the union negotiate a contract on their behalf, making the Houston facility the first privately owned hospital in the state to unionize.

click here for the whole thing (scroll down)

Cool. For those who don't know, Houston's no union town. At all. By any means. Whatsoever. So this is really surprising and uplifting.

All I gotta say is, nurses: rock on!

Latest YouTube vid: Affirmaive Action is not "reverse discrimination"

Damn, he didn't choose my melodies

I guess there's always next time.......yeah right.

Weezer fans dream comes true

fucking school

DAMN fucking son of a bitch there's too much shit to do.

Fucking taxes. Stupid fucking Turbo Tax, pieces of shit.

Stupid ass people.

fuck

New Nader article

I haven't read much of it but here is Ralph Nader's latest In the Public Interest column.


YEAH.

In other news, one of my combos at UNO is playing with Johnny Vidocovich next week. HOLY SHIT.

"Survival of the Squeebiest"

By Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, courtesy of Alternet:

The word "squeeb" is a crude mix of squid and dweeb, and by inventing it I mean no disrespect to the squid...

[A squid] has no heart, and its first instinct when trouble comes is to hide in a cloud of its own excretions. This is why a squiddy word like squeeb seems to me to be a good way to describe the American voter during a presidential election season.

That's especially true now, during a "controversy" like this latest flap over Barack Obama pastor Jeremiah Wright. This Wright business is a perfect example of the American electorate at its squeeby worst -- panicky, gutless, acting more on reflex than thought, incapable of retaining information for more than a few minutes at a time. It's also a great example of how the presidential election process has become more about enforcing the attitudes of a cultural orthodoxy than a system for choosing leaders.

Through scandal after idiotic scandal, the election process has become a painfully prolonged, deeply irritating exercise in policing conventional wisdom, through a variety of means keeping the public in a state of heightened, dumb animal panic, and ultimately turning the election itself into a Darwinian contest -- survival of the Squeebiest.

click here for the whole thing

I highly encourage reading more of this article, it's jam-packed with very funny comments about this so-called scandal and the dolts who created it.

Actually, I've got nothing to ad, I just wanted to share this with all the people who stumble upon this blog after googling "eminem backmasking," (there really are a lot of them...)

Is lead overhyped? Doesn't matter.

I tuned in to some down-home Fox News talk radio this evening, as I do from time to time for laughs.

This particular pundit was ranting in typical Faux fashion about the "lead scare," and about how "lots of parents are freaking out" because of lead presence in children's toys. The pundit said that his generation, as parents, worry too much about their kids. He said something like "many" parents are opting not to buy plastic toys for their kids this Easter, because a Chinese company was found to have Easter eggs with more than the legal amount of lead in the coloring. His argument was that the hype about lead in kid's toys (made in China, of course) is overkill, because lead levels were much higher in the past and everyone turned out relatively well. "Where are th heaps of dead?" he asked.

To scare a Fox pundit you have to have PILES of dead people, not just a few poisoned children throughout the years and scores of mentally disabled people, linked directly to things like lead paint and other pollution...

Anyway, this particular rant really got my bullshit detector humming, and I wanted to document all my thoughts about it right here:

1) ARE "a lot of parents" really freaking out about this, or is Fox hoping that after hearing someone mention the latest "lead scare," that more of them WILL freak out? So, a few articles come out documenting a violation from a Chinese toymaker, some parents post some shit on the Fox Forum, and all of a sudden scores of parents are needlessly freaking out and not buying Easter eggs for their kids. Right, I'm sure Wal-Mart is bogged down with unsold Easter shit (bunnies and candy to commemorate the crucification of your savior? FUCK YOU!).

2) This pundit pointed out that the EPA's standard for lead levels in products was less than .6%, and asked "What IS .6%? I can't see that!" Something like "the average Joe doesn't know what .6% is!" just a bunch of useless whining. At the end of his bitch fit, he was careful not to sound like he was advocating laziness, or carelessness, saying that "they" (the EPA) keep "lowering the standard" of what is too much lead. Yes, the actual percentage of what is legal has been lowered over the years, but most sane people recognize that as raising the standard, not lowering it. This wording, of course, was a lousy attempt at sounding like he wasn't advocating regression in consumer safety.

Country of Laws - Ralph Nader on Spitzer/Bush hypocrisy

From nader.org:

Eliot Spitzer violated certain laws regarding prostitution and transferring of money through banks—though the latter was disputed by some legal experts—and for such moral turpitude emotionally harmed himself, his family and his friends.

George W. Bush violated federal laws against torture, against spying on Americans without judicial approval, against due process of law and habeas corpus in arresting Americans without charges, imprisoning them and limited their access to attorneys. He committed a massive war of aggression, under false [pretenses], violating again and again treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, federal statutes and the Constitution.

click here for the whole thing

Yeah, Nader is really smart. I'd kick myself for not thinking of this legal conundrum myself, but Ralph is really, really smart.

Bottom line: Spitzer broke the law, he resigned; Bush has broken the law many times, he claims he will leave office with his "head held high."

Free Tibet! (and the rest of China too, damnit!)

From the AP via Yahoo:

BEIJING - Soldiers on foot and in armored carriers swarmed Tibet's capital Saturday, enforcing a strict curfew a day after protesters burned shops and cars to vent their anger against Chinese rule. In another western city, police clashed with hundreds of Buddhist monks leading a sympathy demonstration.

the whole thing

I had to click this headline when I saw it because I saw a "Free Tibet" table outside the UNO library not but three days ago. When I saw them, I thought about their cause and realized that it's kinda short-sighted. While Tibet probably deserves freedom, so does ALL of China! In other words, don't just free Tibet, free the rest of China as well, it's still a one party state and this is the 21st century.

Read "The China Fantasy" by James Mann.

Happy 400th Post!

Wow this is my 400th post.

I've been doing this since the '04 election, and now the next election is at our doorsteps.

Let's recap the last Bush term:

• still in Iraq
• still have disproportional taxes
• Supreme Court is basically Margaret Thatcher's wet dream
• still aid terrorist states
• still have NAFTA
• the gears of war are shifting towards Iran
• and a whole lot more

Guess I better keep blogging.

An excersize in bullshit detection

I was looking through some British news sites, ones I don't usually read like The Independent and The Times, and I found this article about Hamas/Iran at the latter 'news' paper. The article is really short and to the "point," and to the average reader, this article would probably present a reasonable excuse for starting a war with, or at least placing sanctions on, Iran. Is it possible that that's what the article is designed to do, make the average Joe who happens to read it feel like the authorities are doing the right thing at that time? Just consult your bullshit detector, here's how:

THE Palestinian group Hamas, blamed for last week’s massacre of eight students at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, has revealed that hundreds of its fighters have been trained in Iran.

So Hamas was "blamed," but were they actually responsible for it? Did they admit to committing the "massacre"? While the subject of the article is aside from that detail, the addition of "blamed for killing school girls," makes sure the reader knows these are the bad guys, regardless of who actually trained them (that's the subject of the article). Let's continue:

A senior commander interviewed by The Sunday Times said 300 of the group’s “best brains” had been secretly sent to Tehran.

You can't tell from just this quote, but the senior commander they're referring to is supposedly a commander from Hamas. This may seem like a weightless argument, but why would a senior commander of Hamas reveal a "secret" to a reporter from The London Times, much less agree to an interview in the first place? Is this a credible testimony? The article doesn't name who the commander was, so if what "he said" was actually true (considering the interview really happened), he must be sabotaging Hamas from the inside. That would make sense, except that the article also says this:

“Iran is our mother,” the commander said. “She gives us information, military supplies and financial support.”

Forgive me again, for sounding like a conspiracy theorist, but isn't that statement kind of.... exactly what certain people want to hear from groups like Hamas, so they can continue to label Iran a "terrorist threat" and therefore legitimize sanctions or even war? and once again, why would a senior commander of Hamas, who says things like "Iran is our mother," expose all of this to a Times reporter if the training was supposed to be a secret?

Enough with my pointed questions, I'll just say this: I think it's highly likely that this article is complete bullshit. There's no way to confirm that this interview even took place, that's the beauty of the story: the guy was giving away a secret about his big bad terrorist organization, he'd be killed if he were identified. But therein lies another contradiction: if this guy is a commander of a big ol' bad schoolgirl killing organization, why hide his identity and protect him? What does The Times owe to this guy, who's part of an organization who supposedly kills innocent people? It is physically impossible that everything in this article is accurate, there's at least one fabrication here.

The Ritter lecture I saw

This is the actual lecture I attended with Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector/Intelligence Officer/US Marine.

Austin domestic abuse officers more efficient than Houston's

In this really short article from the Texas Observer, Houston is compared with Austin in terms of how its law enforcement deals with domestic abuse. There's also information about the Bush administration's undoing of legislation that protected undocumented women from the "catch-22" of calling the police after being abused by husbands with legal US citizenship.

It's a good, important read for everyone, check it out.

Gaza Under Siege

Gaza Under Siege is the latest article from Ralph Nader. Here's the most interesting quote:

Hamas, which was created with the support of Israel and the U.S. government years ago to counter the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), has repeatedly offered cease-fire proposals.

Just another example of how spot-on and direct Ralph is on the issues. Here's an idea: vote for him.

Friday Face Time: Instant Runoff Voting

Definitely Not Safe for Work

Sitting here in a simultaneously liberal and conservative city, I'm reminded of how equally crazy my home state is.

If you're in a place where you can read a story and watch a video about dildos/sodomy and the legality of owning one/participating in it in the Lone Star State, click here now. The article, courtesy of Alternet, is called "The Great Texas Dildo Wars of 2008."

Bottom line: sexual discrimination is still a problem in this country, depending on where you go.

Commanding Heights

Go check it out, it's a PBS feature.

I haven't finished watching it so you may see an update on this later.

The US, UN Security Council, and EU are BREAKING THE LAW

From the AP via Yahoo!:

The U.N. Security Council approved a third round of sanctions against Iran on Monday with near unanimous support, sending a strong signal to Tehran that its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment is unacceptable and becoming increasingly costly.

For the first time, the resolution bans trade with Iran in goods which have both civilian and military uses and authorizes inspections of shipments to and from Iran by sea and air that are suspected of carrying banned items.

Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty circa 1976 (when our puppet leader, The Shah, was in power), and has every legal right to enrich uranium. The UN Security Council is punishing Iran for NOT breaking the law.

Imagine if a police officer gave you a ticket for going the speed limit. That would be illegal. This is the EXACT same thing.

Iran was under the control of the Shah when they signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were there, probably grinning like idiots. Now that Iran is under leadership who don't answer to the United States or United Nations or European Union, all of a sudden it's "unacceptable" for them to enrich ANY uranium AT ALL.

The Shah did studies back in the 70s and concluded that, despite Iran's oil capacity, the country would hit an energy crisis within 30 years if they did not begin to find an alternative way to generate energy. Eager to help, Rumsfeld and Cheney oversaw and approved Iran's signing on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

IT'S A FISH CONSPIRACY

You know there's a conspiracy afoot when something smells fishy, and this time it's actually fish.

Have you noticed how every single fast food chain (including Subway) has starting featuring their fish sandwiches in more ads lately? McDonald's has the double Fillet O Fish, Jack in the Box has a new fish sandwich, Wendy's has a new fish fillet sandwich, and I just saw a Subway commercial that featured their tuna sandwich.

Is this a result of the beef recall? Seems like it. Probably is. I dunno, it's kinda stupid seeing as most of the recalled supply of beef has already been eaten, and there wasn't necessarily anything wrong with it in the first place.

So maybe it's not because of the recall, maybe there's something else wrong with the beef..... more than the big corporate farms, the fast food chains, and the media tare elling us.......IT'S A CONSPIRACY! That's the only explanation.

(yes this was a joke......) But really, is fish any better right now than it's been before? Could there be something wrong with the current beef supply? I guess it's always better to opt for fish if you're gonna have meat, maybe this is an overall good thing. But that just wouldn't be blog worthy, would it?

The Senate "appologizes to Native Americans"

It's an election year, and a Republican decides to act as the spokesperson of a heart-warming, feel-good...piece of paper. A piece of paper that says something to the effect of: "The US government apologizes for any misdeeds it committed against the Native American community over the coarse of this nation's history."

Hundreds of years of exploitation, humiliation, subjugation, genocide....."Sorry."

'Yeah, sorry about destroying your way of life and everything, man our great great grandfathers were NUTS! Well, here's a piece of paper that says we acknowledge that people like us did horrible things to people like you, happy now?'

Okay, to be fair, the Senate is putting more money into "health care for Native Americans" or something like that, but I still get this weird vibe from this story. Seems kinda like....a diversion or something.

Happy March - I just found some vodka in the freezer

I'm feelin' pretty good right now.

I just opened the freezer and saw a bottle of "spring water." I picked it up and realized the stuff inside was not frozen. I took a whiff and concluded that it was some sort of clear liquor.

So I took some sips.

And I'm diggin' some Weezer, I can't wait until their new cd comes out, here's a link to a vid I made about Weezer fans:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wSp5Ov_6Zho

Friday Face Time: Clinton and Obama are Conservative

I dunno, weird

There's transition going on in my environment. I feel strange.

But here's an article from the Guardian about the Army. Seems pretty cool.

Also, I've been reading about one of my favorite bands, Weezer. It makes me really, really, really really, really, really, really, really want to play music for a living.

Yet, I still just sit and read.

Spring Break Shark Attack [video]

I reviewed them the other day and here's the vid from the show I saw:

Clinton and Obama are conservative

In the true sense of the word, Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama are running conservative campaigns.

This quote is in large letters at the top of Obama's "Economy" page:

“I believe that America's free market has been the engine of America's great progress. It's created a prosperity that is the envy of the world. It's led to a standard of living unmatched in history. And it has provided great rewards to the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon for science, and technology, and discovery…We are all in this together. From CEOs to shareholders, from financiers to factory workers, we all have a stake in each other's success because the more Americans prosper, the more America prospers.”

— Barack Obama, New York, NY, September 17, 2007

If you read down the page and look at his actual plans, it says he wants to promote fair trade by "fixing" NAFTA so that it benefits American workers. Sounds great, but how is it possible? I think to "fix NAFTA" to help workers, you just have to outright scrap it, and I don't think that's an unreasonable change to make in trade policy. Therefore I consider Obama's economic plan pretty conservative.

According to both candidates' websites, they want to lower the taxes of middle class families. Super. Neither of them plan to get rid of the breaks Bush gave to the wealthiest Americans, though Obama's site says the tax cuts for the rich are a problem.

It's one thing to criticize Bush's tax cuts, it's another to actually undo what he did. They're scared of saying they're going to raise taxes, so they don't. They just do half the job that needs to be done. That's literally a conservative approach, doing less because it's convenient, conserving time and effort.

Spring Break Shark Attack (a review)

Today I went to this big block party at the Big Top.

There were like 15 bands, most of them fantastic, but the one who stuck out the most to me was the one who played the second slot on the bill: Spring Break Shark Attack of Baton Rouge, LA.

This band transcends all expectations of what a local band can sound like, but first I'll just explain that they're an instrumental surf rock band. Right off the bat, that's something you don't often see, but something more rare is their ability to take an old style and modify it for a modern audience. This isn't a carbon copy of the Ventures we're talking about, this is a truly unique band who doesn't deserve my pigeon-holing them into the surf rock genre.

Most of their song titles have to do with shark attacks (like "Red Tide" and my personal favorite, "Army of Sharkness"), but these comical touches are just icing on top of the rich cake of pure talent that these guys possess. At times their songs transitioned to fast-beat punk sections, but without actually playing power chords (an impressive feat all it's own). At other times they had more metal sounding riffs, which made sense later when I saw one of SBSA's guitarists, Andy, playing with a down-tempo and severely down-tuned (drop F# to be exact) hardcore band called Thou (I tried to hate them but I just couldn't, I sincerely dug that band in spite of my general disgust with modern "hardcore").

SB Shark Attack also had something of a progressive quality. As a trained guitarist, I can say that both their guitarists rival and possibly excel the picking technique of their well known predecessor, Dick Dale. Their songs are well thought-out as well, and I suspect that these guys are former band nerds (takes one to know one, I guess).

Being a surf rock band, they could have easily written a bunch of songs that all sounded alike, but once again they impress in that area as well: each song really holds it's own, while sticking to the surf rock vibe. Not a task easily accomplished, hell the Ventures themselves could barely do it.

I truly cannot express how much this band's mere existence makes me hopeful of rock 'n roll's future in America.

Maybe we don't have to grow jet black bangs that cover one eye; maybe we can wear jeans that fit properly; maybe bands can actually not suck! Check out Spring Break Shark Attack today and see for yourself (myspace.com/sharkattacksurf).

A news story that doesn't focus on the sex side of McCain's trouble

Of course, it's from Democracy Now! A legitimate source of legitimate news.

I heard a little bit of it in my car earlier, I've heard NPR many times on many different stations but I was surprised to hear Democracy Now!, I think it was on WWNO, my school's station.

Anyway, here's a link.

Friday Face Time: My immediate response after the Scott Ritter lecture