record numbers are plunged into poverty

From the AP:
the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005

I know there are several factors involved, but obviously the main one is that the Bush regime refuses to accept the idea that the government should help poor people. That's it, plain and simple. We can talk about all the technical and mystical economic details we want, the fact is that our government doesn't do enough to help it's impoverished population, by which I mean they do not appropriate their budget in a way that helps needy people. Fuck the war, fuck our nukes, fuck NASA (to a certain extent), fuck the psuedo two party system and the true one party state, fuck our support of Isreal and other violent regimes, fuck corporate welfare and the whole corporate system, and fuck George Bush.

Saturday Dog Blog? - Hooch

Sorry I haven't posted anything for a whole week and a day, I went back to Texas for Mardi Gras and I've just been real disinterested with everything right now. I thought today was Friday for some reason but I'm posting a dog blog anyway. Here's my brother's girlfriend's dog, Hooch. I'll get back to good blogging soon. Sorry.

Friday DAWG Blog

Here's a dog I saw at a parade last weekend:




(The term "dawg" simply referrs to the guy's clothes, not his ethnicity.)

White House opens doors to Iraq refugees

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

The Bush administration plans to allow about 7,000 Iraqi refugees to settle in the United States over the next year, a huge expansion at a time of mounting international pressure to help millions who have fled their homes in the nearly four-year-old war.

here's the whole thing

I thought this was very interesting. Back during Christmas break I recall thinking to myself, "What would all these right wingers [I was in Texas at the time] think if we let Iraqis take refuge in our country?". My immediate assumption was that most Bush fans would absolutely despise the idea of letting anyone from that region come here, regardless of their desperate situation. Of course, our government has no choice but to let at least some Iraqis take refuge in our country, since we started this goddamn war in the first place.

This article points out that 7,000 people is only 1% of the total Iraqis who've been displaced. Most go to Syria, but it's getting full. Some neighboring countries have already stopped letting new refugees into their countries, and the one's who are already there can't stay forever.

I read about this a few weeks ago, I can't remember where, but at the time I had no idea that the US was letting any Iraqis take refuge here. I guess all I have to say is that any pro-war asshole who objects to these refugees coming here is a complete hypocrite, and I'm sure most '04 Bush voters are scared shitless about them brown people comin' to our cuuuntry. To them, I say, "BAH!"

Obama may publically fund his presidential campaign

Over at Realart today, Ron posted an article about all the new Democratic congressman who are using loopholes that are getting them better perks than what the Republicans were getting before the lobbying "reforms" that the Democrats helped put it place. I went to PBS's NOW for the first time today, just to see what it was, and I found this article:

Obama's apparent intention is to keep open the option of using the public financing system as a way to fund his campaign if he becomes the Democratic nominee [...] if the Republican candidate agreed to do the same

clickhereforallofit

Of course, this is all just talk right now, and he may not even end up as the Democratic nominee, but it's still good talk. I've been kind of on and off about Obama, not sure whether he's really progressive or just using his image to appear that way while officially siding with corporate interests. Right now I'm turned back on to Obama, but we'll see what happens, as the media is all over him right now and it's only going to get more intense.

WE'RE starting it

Courtesy of Eschaton, this article explains how we're intentionally provoking a war with Iran.

In other.....stuff...I finally switched to the new blogger. I hate Google. Screw those guys. Nah, can't hate on them too much, after all, they've got the BEST image search you could ever dream of.

Lucky for me, the new Blogger didn't promt me to use a new template, as they did Ron at Realart.

Happy Carnival

Mardi Gras is literally outside my window. It's pretty cool.

Here's some media:

Friday Dog Blog freaturing: DON JUAN

Don Juan is a "chaweenie," he's a mix of two small breeds of dog, can you guess what they are? My brother's girlfriend found him living in her dog's house. He's pretty much the coolest dog ever.

Perry's Vision for Texas = Ted Nugent

This is old news but I just now found it so I'm posting it because it's really, really funny.

From Austinist.com

Below are a few comparisons between what Gov. Perry said in his moving speech and what his hired entertainment, Deadly Tedly, said and did on stage later that evening at the ball:

On Racial Prejudice & Hatred
Perry’s Inaugural Speech: “140 years ago a segment of our people was enslaved and considered less than equal. But we are overcoming past prejudice for the sake of the common good…[...]…Imagine the possibilities in a Texas blind to color, class and ethnicity, where no one is invalidated because of their heritage, but valued because of their humanity.

Ted Nugent at the Inaugural Ball: The Motor City Madman played his scorching set draped in a confederate flag shirt – a symbol of slavery in just about everyone’s book – showing his pride for the South and his disrespect for African-American heritage in one crushing blow of 70’s-era guitar force. Perry danced on stage in his tuxedo, grinning contentedly.

On Immigration
Perry’s Inaugural Speech: “My vision for Texas is a tremendous tapestry of diversity woven together by common threads. We are of many faiths, traditions, heritages, but we are all Texans. And in Texas, it is not your identity that matters most, but your ideals.”

Ted Nugent at the Inaugural Ball: During his performance, The Nuge shouted several offensive remarks about non-English speakers and made plain his disgust for foreigners in general and giving them what for. Illegal aliens and people lacking English grammar got a taste of real guitar attack that evening, thanks to the handy work of Theodocious Atrocious. Perry danced on stage in his tuxedo, grinning contentedly.

On Bipartisanship
Perry’s Inaugural Speech: “Texas is better off when Republicans and Democrats work together. Our potential is too vast to be spoiled by a politics leavened with partisanship. There is so much we must do together.”

Ted Nugent at the Inaugural Ball: During his set, Nugent made several comments about Perry’s competitors in the gubernatorial race, suggesting in particular that Kinky Friedman should be “court jester” during Perry’s reign and generally scorning all Perry's non-Republican competition. At the high point of his set, The Kansas City Bad Boy played a fierce guitar solo, at the end of which he screamed out “George W. Bush!” with frothy-mouthed bravado and barbaric angst. Perry danced on stage in his tuxedo, grinning contentedly.

On Moral Values
Perry's Inaugural Speech: “…I also believe no great society can be built, or maintained, if we cultivate in our children the vanity of self rather than the virtue of selflessness...Young Texans must never be taught about rights without also learning about responsibilities. [...]The fabric of our society is not government or individual freedom, it is the family. And the demise of the family is the demise of any great society.”

Ted Nugent at the Inaugural Ball: Terrible Ted actually sang the 70’s hit “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” to the assembled black-tie crowd, complete with pelvic thrusts, using his American flag guitar as a phallic prop in true rock and roll style. The stage was covered with machine guns and skulls as props. Perry danced on stage in his tuxedo, grinning contentedly.

Austinist has deciphered the code of Perry's Inaugural Speech. We see his true vision for the future of Texas. Forget peace, equality and a functioning democracy unburdened by partisan agendas. The future of Texas is rock and roll.

clickhereforallofit

Wal-Mart, unions unite on health care [what the FUCK?]

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

Executives from Wal-Mart and three other major U.S. employers on Wednesday joined hands with union leaders in setting a goal of providing "quality, affordable" health care for every American by 2012.

However, they did not propose any specific policies to achieve this goal, or commit to spending any extra money in the near-term to provide health coverage to more workers.

[...]

Despite praise from SEIU and Communications Workers of America leaders who called for universal health care for every American within five years, Paul Blank, the campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com, gave only tepid support for the plan in a prepared statement.

"If Wal-Mart is truly serious," Blank said, "we challenge the company to provide universal health care to all of its uninsured employees and their families today." Blank's group is funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers, which did not participate in Wednesday's press conference.

clickhereforallofit

"I smell a rat," would be an under-statement right now. More like, "I smell a week old beached whale in the middle of July."

Here's what I've come up with:
Lee Scott and those other suites are actually trying to undermine the national health care movement by claiming to be a part of it. They'll make some changes, claiming to be fighting for national health care by 2012, and when we don't get it, all of corporate America (including Lee Scott and the others) can say, "SEE, we can't have national health care, we tried! It didn't work! Lets move on," and every Faux News pundit will follow suite. They're trying to squash the effort for good by manipulating it to their own advantage from the inside! It's quite brilliant, if that's what they're doing.

I simply can not believe that these corporate guys are actually sincere about this. After all, they're not increasing health coverage for their own employees, even while they claim to be fighting for better health care. Then again, maybe this is the epidome of Wal-Mart's current practice: "we don't have to pay a decent wage, the government can pay the difference!"

Wal-Mart assists their employees in applying for welfare money. They make a point to inform their employees that "there is help available (just not from us)." The big boys at the top don't get enough of their own government assistance (i.e. subsidies and income tax breaks), they have to screw their workers out of a decent wage and make the biggest possible profit while their most loyal customers bitch and moan about welfare queens taking all of their hard earned money and praise Wal-Mart as the greatest store ever. This is the way it's always been, and it just got a few notches more looney.

What America Needs to Know About Rudy Giuliani

From Crooks and Liars:

You might recall that several New York firefighters died when the towers collapsed. Giuliani testified to the 9/11 Commission that firefighters had been given an evacuation order, but they chose to stay because they were rescuing civilians. This testimony was not exactly, um, true.

[...]

"On perhaps the most painful of these, the loss of at least 121 firefighters in the north tower, Mr. Giuliani suggested that they stayed inside the trade center because they were busy rescuing civilians — never mentioning that they could not hear warnings from police helicopters, that many of them never learned the south tower had collapsed or that they were having serious problems staying in touch with their own commanders.

[...]

It is clear, witnesses said, that even after the south tower collapsed, many, if not most, of the firefighters had no idea that they were in dire peril, or that it was time for them to leave. In contrast, police officers received strong guidance from their commanders to get out of the building, the commission reported, thanks in large part to the information sent to the ground by police helicopters."

The police could not talk to the firefighters, however, because the two NY departments used different types of radios set on different frequencies. Giuliani offered the 9/11 commission a lame excuse about the limits of technology, which is absurd on its face. In fact, there had been many complaints about the radios before 9/11, and the Mayor had done nothing.

[...]

Wayne Barrett (author of Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11 and Kevin Keating (director of the documentary “Giuliani Time” were interviewed by Amy Goodman recently; see the transcript here. Wayne Barrett said,

"The firefighters were using the same radios that they used at the ’93 bombing, even though we found a report that was written in 1990 that said that they were already obsolete and that they were a danger to the life of firefighters. And the firefighters are still carrying those same radios eight years after the 1993 bombing."

clickhereforallofit

The list goes on, it's long and disturbing. I haven't even read the whole thing. Since Rudy's a presidential hopeful for '08, I thought it'd be good to discuss this. I'm still trying to decide whether all of this stuff was all his fault. I never really thought of Giuliani as a "lame-duck" mayor, as this post said, but I guess that's because I'm not from New York, and I've mostly seen Giuliani on old episodes of SNL, where he appeared often back in the day.

I'm also still not sure of what a mayor's job actually is...

Take that Bears, I hate you

The Colts avenged the Saints' defeat last night in one of the coolest Super Bowls I've ever seen.

I wouldn't call myself much of a football fan, but I sure as hell am a Saints fan after this season, and I'm glad that the team who kept them from playing in the Super Bowl got raped pretty hard, so I'm a Colts fan now too (and I think the Saints could have done much better against them than the Bears).

The Saints are the one thing that anyone in New Orleans can agree on. They're one of the only positive influences in the city; when they win, everyone feels good, even for just a little while. Watching the Saints do well is the footballical equivalent of eating a big bowl of gumbo on a sat'day afternoon, or biting into an overstuffed po-boy after work. A Super Bowl victory would have been so good for New Orleans, it broke my heart that they didn't make it. I'll start off next season rooting for the Saints, then the Colts, then maybe the Cowboys since I still consider Texas my home (and the Texans are a fucking joke).

Revisiting old wisdom

From the first chapter of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States:

What did people in Spain get out of all that death and brutality visited on the Indians of the Americas? For a brief period in history, there was the glory of a Spanish Empire in the Western Hemisphere. As Hans Koning sumit up in his book Columbus: His Enterprise:

For all the gold and silver stolen and shipped to Spain did not make the Spanish people richer. It gave their kings and edge in the balance of power for a time, a chance to hire more mercenary soldiers for their wars. They ended up losing those wars anyway, and all that was left was a deadly inflation, a starving population, the rich richer, the poor poorer, and a ruined peasant class.

You can paste this quote directly into our war with Iraq and pretty much anything we've ever done over there, changing "Spain" to the US. Skeptics would of course point out their knee-jerk disconnect where the American Indians were not a "direct threat to Europe's security" like them gol-dern terrrists is. What they would of course be missing, as they always have, is that Islamic fundamentalists would not have gained so much power in that region had we not screwed it up so severely already. This quote doesn't just apply to the current war that we're still losing in Iraq, it applies to our days as early back as the 1950's when we installed the Shah in Iran, and maybe even before that. Iraqis, Afghans, Kosovars, you name 'em, they're the Indians. We're the Spaniards, English, Dutch, Italian, you name them too. It's the same thing, with a big horrific attack on our soil to distort our rationality and still give war mongers' racist, nationalist, imperialist, and bigoted points of view any miniscule amount of substance.

This is one of those rants that seems like it should have been posted a long time ago, but I think that even though America is overwhealmingly against the war, most Americans are probably just physically and mentally tired of it. It's not some kind of ideological shift, it's just a repeat of Vietnam: the longer it goes on, the more we hate it. We still don't really question why the war is happening, or why it was allowed to happen in the first place. We're just fatigued and simply want it to go away.

If I don't stop now I never will.

Friday DOG BLOG

My dog snickers, once again.

Here's a video

Open Letter to President Bush 1-19-07

From Nader.org:

I have read your address to the nation on “The New Way Forward in Iraq” and wish to share some observations.

You say “where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.” You then quickly change the subject. Whoa now, what does it mean when you say the responsibility for mistakes rest with you?

Responsibility for “mistakes” that led to the invasion—which other prominent officials and former officials say were based on inaccurate information, deceptions, and cover-ups?

Responsibility for the condoning of torture, even after the notorious events at abu-Gharib prison were disclosed?

Responsibility for months and months of inability to equip our soldiers with body armor and vehicle armor that resulted in over 1,000 lost American lives and many disabilities?

clickhereforallofit

Just like every other Ralph Nader article I post, I don't need to ellaborate on it or give my own interpretation or opinion or explanation. It's just cool.

Bush's pseudo-progressive jibber jabber

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

President Bush took aim Wednesday at lavish salaries and bonuses for corporate executives, standing on Wall Street to issue a sharp warning for corporate boards to "step up to their responsibilities" and tie compensation packages to performance.

[...]

The president acknowledged people's continuing nervousness about their financial picture, despite a string of similar reports that provide some reason for optimism. He said he realized that stories about the enormous salaries and other perks for CEOs, for instance, create anger and uncertainty that affect the country's investors.

[...]

"Government should not decide the compensation for America's corporate executives," he said. "But the salaries and bonuses of CEOs should be based on their success at improving their companies and bringing value to their shareholders."

clickhereforallofit

This new "I'll learn them CEOs" jargin sounds somewhat progressive at first, but not so much when you look at what he's really saying. He doesn't even use the word "worker" or "employee," because that's not who he's even pretending to protect. He clearly says he's looking out for shareholders and/or investors. Shareholders are not the same as employees or workers. Some workers own stock in their companies, but from my expierience working at my dad's place of business, I know that most probably don't--even if their company does very well in the market.

If ol' Georgey boy thinks he's going to win over economic progressives like myself, he's going to actually have to think about the workers, laborers, and employees (documented or not) who get screwed by these greedy bastards, not the slightly less rich stock holders who, apparently, aren't rich enough.

"Viva Bush"? what the FUCK?

Driving back from Texas yesterday, I noticed a bumper sticker on a car in front of me that clearly said "Bush" but had something else before it that I couldn't make out. I sped up to get a closer look, I figured it said something negative, but it actually said something that made me say, "You're a fucking idiot!," out loud. This was the sticker:


The driver appeared to be Hispanic but it doesn't really matter. The sticker looked too old to be an anti-Hugo Chavez one, it must have just been an extremely rare and quite troublesome message from the Hispanic community. It's rare because most Latinos know that Bush doesn't give a shit about them or their native countrymen. Our foreign policy has royally screwed over millions of poor people in Latin America. Why any knowledgable Hispanic American would vote for Bush, or any Republican for that matter, is beyond me. I can understand why an unopinionated and politically ignorant Hispanic person would vote for Bush, but for someone who felt strongly enough to put a political sticker on their car, and to be completely blind to Bush's blatently anti-Latino foreign policy, is just disturbing.

'Obama calls for national health care' -- [so what?]

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

"The time has come for universal health care in America," Obama said at a conference of Families USA, a health care advocacy group.

"I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country," the Illinois senator said.

Obama was previewing what is shaping up to be a theme of the 2008 Democratic primary. One of his rivals, 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards, also said as he announced his candidacy last month that he will offer a proposal for universal health care.

[...]

He said it's wrong that 46 million in this country are uninsured when the country spends more than any one else on health care. He said Americans pay $15 billion in taxes to help care for the uninsured.

[...]

Even after leading that calamitous attempt in 1993, Clinton remains a strong advocate of universal health care and has made it a central theme of her presidential bid.

clickhereforallofit

Okay, Barack Obama says we should have universal health care. That's what this article is about. But then it also says that John Edwards and Hillary Clinton want national health care too, so why does it matter that Obama was talking about it? What makes him any better of a Democrat than the other two? He's gotten a lot of praise from just about everyone; Time Magazine had him on the cover a few months back as our future president. Don't get me wrong, I want a black president just as much as the next guy, but I just don't see how much of a difference he would really make.

I'm not usually very pessimistic, but there is no chance in hell that the US is going to convert to national health care any time soon. As Obama pointed out himself, national health care always gets set back by "Washington politics." I don't think it's politics, I think it's an unspoken and highly concealed bipartisan consensus that national health care is inherently evil. No matter what the Dems say about it, they're never actually going to go through with it. They know that a staggering majority of Americans believe, and have so for many years, that national health care is the way to go, and they use it sometimes to get elected. That's it. Even Obama.

More hot air, please, I can't get enough.

The Saints go skanking in

My band, The Drafted, is playing this Friday at a north Houston venue called The Meltdown. After the New Orleans Saints' phenomenal season, I was inspired to write a punk rock version of "The Saints Go Marching In."

Before I get to the lyrics, I want to talk about this new software called Power Tab Editor. Power Tab is music software that you can download very easily, for free, that allows the user to notate and play back guitar tabliture (and traditional music notation too). Bands like mine, who are separated by long distances, can write new songs without getting together. After I wrote this rendition I downloaded Power Tab, wrote it out, saved it, and emailed it to all my band members, who also have Power Tab on their computers. They can then open the file on their computer and learn the song, without having to organize a rehearsal. This is not a substitute for band practice, but it is a short cut for song writing, which would normally require a lot of time for the band to get together. So for my band, even though we can't practice altogether all the time, we can at least email each other new material and practice it individually before our short pre-show rehearsals and continue to play new songs for our loyal and ever-growing fanbase.

Anyway, I kept the old first verse and wrote two new verses that apply to 2006-2007:

Oh when the Saints, go marching in
Oh when the Saints go marching in
Oh how I want to be in that number
When the Saints go marching in

I hate the Bears, I hate the Bears
I hate the motherfucking Bears
Oh how I want to go to Chicago
And kill the motherfucking Bears

Oh when the Saints, come back next year
Oh whenthe Saints come back next year
Oh how I want to be in New Orleans
When they win the Super Bowl

(repeat first verse)

New axe motherfucker

check it the fuck out, here's a vid.

Friday DOG BLOG

meet: The Drafted

I know I talk about my band sometimes so I thought I'd post a video that I made the other day.

"They did everything they were trained to do[: murder]"

From the AP:

Eight Marines were charged Thursday in the killings of 24 Iraqi civilians last year during a bloody, door-to-door sweep in the town of Haditha that came after one of their comrades was killed by a roadside bomb.

In the biggest U.S. criminal case involving civilian deaths to come out of the Iraq war, four of the Marines — all enlisted men — were charged with unpremeditated murder.

[...]

The most serious charges were brought against Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, a 26-year-old squad leader accused of murdering 12 civilians and ordering the murders of six more inside a house cleared by his squad. He was accused of telling his men to "shoot first and ask questions later," according to court papers released by his attorney.

[...]

Defense attorneys have disputed that, saying their clients were doing as they had been taught: responding to a perceived threat with legitimate force.

"There's no question that innocent people died that day, but Staff Sergeant Wuterich believes, and I believe, they did everything they were trained to do," said Wuterich's lawyer, Neal Puckett.

click here for all of it

As these Marines' attorney said, they were doing what they were taught. The Marines have been taught to shoot every single target they can find in the vacinity of an attack, no questions asked. That doesn't sound like spreading democracy to me. What are we doing over there?

Iraq troop buildup idea worries generals

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

A White House laboring to find a new approach in Iraq said Tuesday it is considering sending more U.S. troops, an option that worries top generals because of its questionable payoff and potential backlash. President Bush said he is ready to boost the overall size of an American military overstretched by its efforts against worldwide terrorism.

The military's caution on shipping thousands of additional troops temporarily to Iraq is based on a fear that the move could be ineffective without bold new political and economic steps.

Commanders also worry that the already stretched Army and Marine Corps would be even thinner once the short-term surge ended. Bush's newly expressed interest in making the military larger would have little impact on that worry because it will take much longer to add substantially to the size of the military.

Generals also question whether sending more troops to Iraq would feed a perception that the strife in Iraq is mainly a military problem; in their view it is largely political, fed by economic distress.

click here for all of it

Like I said in the previous post, he's the worst ever. We shouldn't send more troops, take it from the generals. They know a little more about war than the president, that's what they're there for. Bush has been notorious for doing the opposite of what his generals say, and putting his owns words in their mouths. Almost any time they talk about his strategy, it's like a negative critique. Isn't that tendancy a bit of a clue?

WORST EVER!

By far the worst

President Bush said today that he plans to put more troops in Iraq.

Who does this guy think he is? He's stuck in 2003 or something. This is absolutely, inarguably, undeniably, grounds for impeachment.

I'm stunned he thinks he can get away with this.

Does anyone still feel like explaining why it's dumb to still have toops in Iraq? Is it pointless to explain why we never should have gone in there?

"The search is on"

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Kip Davis and Jay Robison saw what they believed was an ivory-billed woodpecker on Thursday, one of thousands of reported sightings piling up as leaves in an east Arkansas swamp drift down.

[...]

Connie Bruce, a spokeswoman for Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology, which is researching the possible re-appearance of the ivory-billed woodpecker, said the search continues despite no evidence being turned up last winter.

"The search is on," Bruce said. "This is very important to us. We all want to locate this bird."

click here for all of it

Seriously, if you've seen this woodpecker anywhere, please contact your local animal control office. This is a problem we've got to address. We're losing too many soldiers in Iraq as it is, we can't afford to lose this woodpecker.

America's Injustice System is Criminal

From Counter Punch by way of RealArt:

The Christmas season is a time to remember the unfortunate. Among the most unfortunate people are those who have been wrongly convicted and imprisoned.

The United States has a large number of wrongfully convicted. There are many reasons for this. One is that the US has the largest percentage of its citizens imprisoned of all countries in the world, including China. One of every 32 US adults is behind bars, on probation or on parole. Given a wrongful conviction rate, the larger the percentage of citizens in jails, the greater the number of wrongfully convicted.

According to the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College in London, the US has 700,000 more of its citizens incarcerated than China, a country with a population four to five times larger than that of the US, and 1,330,000 more people in prison than crime-ridden Russia. The US has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prisoners. The American incarceration rate is seven times higher than that of European countries. Either America is the land of criminals, or something is seriously wrong with the criminal justice (sic) system in "the land of the free."

click here for all of it

This is pretty wild. He gives a few examples of people who've been convicted with no evidence. This article mentions a whole bunch of specific issues regarding injustice, though not citing examples for all of them. It's a good read, but some of it is pretty arguable.

Calif. company faces immigration charges

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

A Southern California fence-building company and two executives pleaded guilty Thursday to knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and agreed to pay a combined penalty of $5 million. The executives could also go to prison.

The penalty is one of the biggest fines ever imposed in an immigration case, and the case represents a rare instance in which prosecutors brought criminal charges over the hiring of illegal immigrants.

[...]

The two men admitted hiring at least 10 illegal immigrants.

[...]

Hirsch said prosecutors plan to ask for six months behind bars for the two men at sentencing March 28. The maximum sentence is five years. Prison time is unusual in such cases.

Among Golden State Fence's projects in recent years was construction of part of a 14-mile border fence in San Diego in the late 1990s.

Last year, in one of the biggest cases of its kind, Wal-Mart agreed to pay $11 million to end a federal investigation into the use of illegal immigrants at stores in 21 states.

Companies are rarely hit with criminal charges for hiring illegal immigrants.

[...]

The illegal hiring took place between 1999 and 2005.

[...]

Golden State, which has 750 employees, saw sales soar from $60 million in 1998 to $150 million in 2004, according to a biography of Kay provided by the company.

The plea bargain comes just days after federal authorities raided meat processing plants in six states as part of an investigation into the stealing and selling of identity documents so illegal immigrants could get jobs.

clickhereforallofit

That seventh little paragraph says it all. Companies rarely get busted for this because the government just isn't that concerned with illegal labor, though this article seems to show that the government is suddenly cracking down on this issue, which is what I've always said the government needed to do. I'd still like to hear this side of the illegal immigration debate more often, even though I can't stand the illegal immigration debate because it was so obviously sparked recently to distract us from Iraq.

Anyway, I'm right, always have been, thanks for stopping by, say no to corporate labor abuse.

Bush: I won't be rushed on Iraq

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

President Bush said Wednesday he would "not be rushed" into a decision on a strategy change for Iraq, saying that in a round of consultations he heard both some interesting ideas and some "ideas that would lead to defeat."

"And I reject those ideas," Bush said after meeting with top generals and Defense Department officials at the Pentagon. He said those ideas included "leaving before the job is done, ideas such as not helping this (Iraqi) government take the necessary and hard steps to be able to do its job."

clickhereforallofit

"Ideas that WOULD lead to defeat?" We're there Georgie! Get the fuck out!! There's no victory when there's no plan, and you can't decide on a plan! You keep changing your plan, you keep changing the whole fucking purpose of this "war." Get the fuck out!

"Before the job is done?" Give me a break and get the fuck out. Of Iraq. Right now.

Police: Ill. gunman [not terrorist] angry over invention

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

Joe Jackson, 59, made at least one other attempt Friday to enter the offices of the intellectual property law firm Wood, Phillips, Katz, Clark & Mortimer, but was turned away because he didn't have an appointment, said Chicago Police Superintendent Phil Cline.

The next time he returned, Jackson had a revolver, knife and hammer hidden in a manila envelope, Cline said. He forced a security guard at gunpoint to take him up to the 38th floor, where shooting victim Michael McKenna, 58, rented office space. Jackson carried McKenna's business card in his pocked, Cline said.

click here for all of it

I don't mean to ignore the actual story, but I am. I've posted this to point out that Joe Jackson is not a terrorist, he is a gunman. He was angry, shot some people, his religion, or lack thereof, is irrelevant. Even the word "terror" is nowhere to be found on the entire web page.

Also in Illinois:

A Muslim convert is in custody accused of trying to trade two stereo speakers for a 9 mm pistol and the grenades authorities say he wanted to carry out an attack on holiday shoppers.

[...]

The imam of the Muslim Association of Greater Rockford, Shpendim Nadzaku, commended authorities for intercepting the alleged plot and reiterated "the Muslim community's condemnation of terrorism in the name of Islam."

click here for all of it (also from the AP via Yahoo! News)

This web page had "terror," "terrorist," and "terrorism," in several places, though the article itself only used the word "terrorism" once, but it was okay because a Muslim said it...

Joe Jackson the gunman actually killed some people, Derrick Shareef the terrorist never got the chance to.

I dunno about you but I'm about to saddle up for the War on Gumanism.

Bush's Meeting With A Murderer

From Tompaine.com (Dec. 4th, 2006) by Robert Dreyfuss:

President George W. Bush meets today with Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the [...] leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shiite fundamentalist party that is strongly tied to Iran. In so doing, the president is meeting with someone who, perhaps more than anyone else in Iraq, is responsible for trying to destroy Iraqi national unity, prevent national reconciliation among Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian mix, and push Iraq into civil war.

click here for all of it

Whats the difference between harboring terrorists and shaking hands with them?

I guess going and meeting with them on their turf takes a little more work, or maybe lack thereof. Enough joking, Bush is literally shaking hands with the enemy, with a real "evil doer," as he calls others. How does he continue to get away with this shit?

or

Just watched V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta is one of the best movies ever. I am pumped right now! Wish I had seen it in theaters. Why didn't people revolt after that movie? It's so perfect, it lays out exactly whats wrong with several governments right now, it's basically a re-telling of Orwell's 1984, a story that still needs to be told. Every day. Until people wise up.

I'm gonna go torch some buildings now.

I coined 'turban street'

In the next few days you may hear various versions of a joke that I posted in a myspace bulletin with the punchline of "turban street."

I am using this blog to publish the joke and have concrete proof that I said it first.

The joke:

Jen: (after several emergency vehicles zoom by the cafe) Man whats going on?? They've caught Osama bin Laden in New Orleans!

Me: Yeah, they caught him on TURBAN STREET!

Just wait, turban streets gonna be HUGE, you'll see.

"Seeing money can change behavior"

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

Kathleen Vohs, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota, and colleagues, conducted a series of nine experiments in which people were asked to do puzzles or other tasks and the behavior of people exposed to money was compared to others who were not prompted to think about it.

[...]

In another experiment 44 students at Florida State University were each given $2 in quarters — which they were told was leftover from a previous experiment — and asked to unscramble sentences that divided them into two groups, one that was reminded of money by the sentence and others that were not.

When they left, the researcher noted that there was a box by the door for donations for needy students if they wanted to chip in, but they didn't have to.

On average, students who had read neutral sentences donated $1.34 while those whose sentences reminded them of money kept more for themselves, giving an average of just 77 cents.

[...]

Vohs research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chair Council.

clickhereforallofit

I dunno, [something about capitolism]. Its a really interesting study, I recommend reading all of it. I'm not exactly sure how to interpret the results, but they don't really suprise me. What would we do without Canada?

Will the Dems suprise me?

From the AP:

Dem scrutiny of drugs, defense expected

[...]

Generally speaking, Democrats have said they will differ from Republicans by being tougher watchdogs of corporate wrongdoing and government spending and bigger defenders of consumers and labor unions.

clickhereforallofit

Here's hoping.

Fundamentals of an Acceptable Democracy (for the United States of America)

Government leaders should put social goals above economic goals; human interests are more important than business interests.

Political candidates should not be supported by private corporations; politicians should not be allowed to accept contributions from businesses--only individual citizens, and large donations should be investigated and/or scrutinized.

Government should provide at least two years of free education for highschool graduates.

Study of the humanities should be emphasized in public school curriculum.

If they appear on more than half of all the states' ballots, third party presidential candidates should be allowed to participate in presidential debates with major party candidates.

The public should be allowed to vote on major national budget issues, i.e. considerable cuts or raises in funding for any government programs.

Personal privacy should not be infringed upon, even in established or declared national security crises or "troubled times" or "high stakes."

The public should vote on declarations of war and/or any kinds of military invasion, occupation or force against another country. Government should not order offensive military action without the consent of the public (by means of the voting process).

A truely democratic country will not use military intervention to change another country's governmental system, leadership, or philosophy.

All basic human rights that a government observes within its national borders should be equally observed outside of its national borders; war crimes are unacceptable, even if the opposing country/government has already committed them (even in greater volume or with higher severity).

Using Saddam's sentence to boost Republican votes

From AFP (Agence France Presse):

US voters weight Republican fate on election eve

[...]

Candidates in down-to-the-wire races cranked up get-out-the-vote efforts and Bush launched a final three-state campaign swing, with polls showing a tightening of a race expected to heap pain on his fellow Republicans.

[...]

On Sunday, he taunted anti-war critics by holding up the death sentence handed down on former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as vindication for the 2003 US invasion.

"My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision, and the world is better off for it," he said.

clickhereforallofit

Its no suprise that Republicans, especially Bush, would try to use Saddam's death sentence as a last minute vote booster. Everyone hates Saddam, but will the American people be convinced that the world is better off now that Hussein is going to hang?

Lets not forget that the search for WMDs showed up practically empty, and there's no evidence that they were going to start a nuke program or supply "terrorists" with weapons or anything that extreme.

Are the American people gullible enough to keep Republicans in power just because Saddam has been sentenced to death? He's been captive for like two years now, whats really the difference? Troops are still dying, and Iraq doesn't appear to be stabilizing at all -- "Oh yay, Saddam's gonna hang!..."

If Americans are happy about Saddam's death sentence, they should remember that EVERYONE in Congress wanted to go to war back in 2003. Well, they voted for it, at least. But is his death sentence a victory in this so-called war on terror? Yeah right.

"Wrecker-in-Chief"

from nader.org:

On October 17th, George W. Bush, signed into law a bill he bulldozed through Congress that, in Senator Patrick Leahy’s prophetic words, would suspend “the writ of habeas corpus, a core value in American law, in order to avoid judicial review that prevents government abuse.” This law, whose constitutionality is in doubt and will be reviewed by the Supreme Court in due time, puts so much arbitrary and secret unilateral power in the hands of the Presidency that the ghost of King George III must be wondering what all the fuss was about in 1776.

If you want more evidence of how obsessively-compulsed George W. Bush is about his wars, their fabrications, budgets and cover-ups, consider his cue card statement on the legislation at the White House signing ceremony. “It is a rare occasion when a president can sign a bill he knows will save American lives,” he declared.

Hello! He has rejected all kinds of occasions to save American lives here at home. He has refused to do anything about the widespread and preventable mayhem known as medical and hospital malpractice, while fanatically pushing for restrictions on the right of such victims or their next of kin to have their full day in court. At least 80,000 Americans die from malpractice just in hospitals every year, according to the Harvard School of Public Health.

The same Presidential pen could have saved thousands of more lives and prevented many more injuries were it to alight on safety legislation and larger budgets for reducing job-related sickness and trauma (58,000 lost lives a year) and air pollution (65,000 lives a year) – to name a few categories of preventable violence. But he signaled from the onset of his Presidency that such bills would be opposed from the getgo.

And once again remember his incompetence in letting U.S. soldiers – hundreds of them die in Iraq from the lack of adequate body armor.

At the signing event, Mr. Bush called the legislation “a way to deliver justice to the terrorists we have captured.” To him all captured subjects are ipso facto convicted terrorists. It is not as if his record gives any credence to such fantasies. But he persists in his deception none the less. Out of nearly 700 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, he has charged only ten after over four years of detention. Ten! Why? Mostly, as military, civilian lawyers and other monitors have said, because the vast majority of these abused or beaten prisoners were innocent from the day of their apprehension – victims of bounty hunters in Afghanistan and surroundings.

clickhereforallofit

I don't have time to write much about this, I just think its a damn good read. If you have second thoughts about George Bush when you hear sound bites on Fox News, just read Ralph.

Cops crash a country show at Walter's

From the Houston Chronicle:

A Houston police officer responding to a noise complaint Friday night at Walter's, a popular music venue on Washington Avenue, discharged his Taser at least three times when a melee ensued after he told a guitar player to turn down the volume.

[...]

[Sgt. Nate] McDuell said [Adam] Stephens, whose guitar was hanging from a neck strap, then used a sexual obscenity and shoved the officer with his shoulder.

[...]

Stephens said he was sideways and singing on the stage just before he turned around and saw the officer, who then shined a flashlight at him and said, "Stop."

Stephens, who denied shoving the officer, said he responded, "Why?"

He said the officer moved closer to him and yelled, "Stop!"

Stephens said he again asked why and that the officer then grabbed him by the neck and forced him to the floor.

Accounts vary, but apparently several people then charged the stage, there was a lot of pushing and shoving, and the officer called for backup.

[...]

[G.M.] Rodriguez suffered bruises and cuts on his arms, at least four people were arrested, a valuable bass was broken. A tall, slender 14-year-old with shoulder-length hair was Tasered, and a University of Houston sociology student doing a "field paper on the music scene" also was Tasered.

clickhereforallofit

I heard about this from my girlfriend a few days ago, but it was second hand from a Hot Topic employee so I wasn't sure if it was true (because that store's specialty is fabrication).

What suprises me the most is that these bands got the cops called on it. WAAAY louder bands have played at Walter's before, like The Casualties for example, who are actually coming back to Walter's this Friday, and I think Youth Brigade played sometime last week.

There's no question that this cop was an asshole and was completely out of line. So I'm not going to discuss that.

My theory as to why the cops targeted Walter's is that they were actually called about an earlier, louder show, the kind that Walter's has more often than these "laid back country" shows. It must have been just a slow night for this cop and he happened to drive by Walter's and recognized the name of the place and heard some noise. Hell, the neighbor who called the cops probably does so every single night! So this Rodriguez character decides he's actually going to humor the neighbors tonight and show up.

I can imagine how confusing it would be for a cop to be so pissed off about some laid back folk rock show.

Here's how it plays out in my head: you're up on the stage playing your guitar, the bright stage lights make it difficult to see anyone in the crowd, you seem to be ignoring the cop because you CAN'T FUCKING SEE HIM, so he gets up on the stage and approaches you; if you're facing away from the crowd (to the side in this case), you probably can't see him even after he comes up onto the stage so you accidentally run into him as you turn back to face the crowd.

Basically, if Stephens really did run into that cop first, it was quite likely just an accident, and this cop flipped out.

I've been planning on booking a show out at Walter's for my loud, rowdy punk rock band, The Drafted. Luck for us, Houston cops would rather raid the mellow college crowd!

Whats wrong with this picture?

From NPR:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters the United States is open to negotiations with North Korea to "keep the crisis from escalating."

[...]

Rice's trip to Asia is aimed at boosting support in South Korea and China for sanctions against North Korea.

clickhereforallofit

Maybe I don't fully understand what sanctions are, or whatever the Bush administration means by "sanctions" these days, but it doesn't seem like a form of negotiation to me. And I think the term "open to negotiations" kind of goes out the window when you're pushing for sanctions. Like, "We're open to anything, but mostly just sanctions." I can't believe Rice is actually trying to make it sound like the administration wants to negotiate.

I guess they really mean to negotiate with South Korea and China about placing sanctions against North Korea. Thats really the only way to make sense of it.

But, how dumb am I being by trying to rationalize something the Bush administration is doing?

Why I'm not scared of North Korea

Its been more than two years now since I wrote a song called "North Korea" for my punk band, The Drafted. The song was about my confusion after I first heard that North Korea claimed to have a Bomb. I couldn't understand why we were invading Iraq because they might be trying to start a nuke program (the first reason we were there) while another country, with a considerably more insane dictator, actually admitted to having such weapons and our leaders essentially ignored it.

The media paid closer attention this summer when they tested those missiles, but now that they've tested this nuke its really gotten crazy, on both sides. I mean, Kim Jong Il is out of his fucking mind. No one is disputing that; the man is insane, but he's not dumb enough to use his weapons before someone else does first. How do I know this? North Korea is all Kim Jong Il has! NO ONE likes that guy! If he tries to take the offensive and nuke another country first, he knows he's going to get creamed by one of the other several nuclear states, no matter who he nukes. Inversely, we can't do SHIT to them now, so we might as well humor them and include them in international dialogue.

The North Korean government has repeatedly said that they developed the nuclear weapons as a defensive measure. With Il's insanity aside, how hard is that to believe? Freaking out about it only displays everyone's belief that they're a bunch of animals, and maybe they will end up using them first if we keep acting that way.

Its like bees. If you don't bother them, they don't bother you. I've had wasps land on me before and I just froze; they fly away immediately. Whether North Korea deserves respect or not, we've got to give it to them now. The only way to get them to listen to dissarmament talks would be for the other nuclear nations to dissarm first, and who expects that to happen any time soon?

No one seems to be looking at the nuclear situation in the same way that I am, maybe I'm the crazy one.

A post from Nader.org

Options For Revision

Imagine the U.S. military – from the soldiers on the ground to the generals – saying publicly what they are thinking and saying privately about their two draft-dodging but bellicose rulers in the White House.

Sometimes, reporters have gathered a few excoriating statements from the frustrated, beleaguered, often body armor-less GIs. One even demanded Bush’s resignation from his barracks in Iraq, which was shown on national television.

There is also the under-reported Zogby poll released in January 2006 –
the only scientifically sampled field poll in Iraq – which showed over
seventy percent of the soldiers thought the United States should
withdraw in a time period ranging from six months to a year. And this
opinion in the war zone was registered when the situation was not as
bad as the quagmire is today.

As for the Generals, their dissatisfaction with Don Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, goes well beyond his brusque personality into the rigid and mistaken policies from the beginning of this fabricated, illegal war.

Now comes the New York Times reporter, Michael R. Gordon, with a page one story about a forthcoming Army and Marine Corps field manual with a “new counterinsurgency doctrine that draws on the hard learned lessons from Iraq and makes the welfare and protection of civilians a bedrock element of military strategy.”

Some might view this manual – drawing from the experiences of bottom to top military personnel – to be an indirect rebuke of the failed brute, force military policies of the Bush White House. Some may also wonder what took the Pentagon so long to rediscover old knowledge about what succeeded and failed in foreign military occupations. Old knowledge that says reliance on sheer military power, mistreating prisoners, and not safeguarding civilians and essential public services fails again and again.

Well, better late than never. This particular field manual went through many comments, consultations, and drafts before distilling nine “representative paradoxes” of counterinsurgency operations. Their theme is that the more force used, the less effective it is. Staying in touch with the civilian population, instead of staying in compounds, is more effective than a brute force and firepower approach. Dollars and ballots have more impact than sheer weaponry because they strengthen the host country’s restoration of basic services like police, electricity, drinking water, food, health and schools.

Other paradoxes include one that says “tactical success guarantees nothing," and that “most of the important decisions are not made by generals,” but by troops at all levels.

By now you are probably saying, “Isn’t that just repeating the obvious?” Why, yes, but when your dogmatic, messianic commanders are Bush and Cheney, shorn of history, common sense, and critical reactive thinking, the “obvious” has to be conveyed as something new, lest it be seen as what it is – a repudiation of disas trous policies from design to supply to logistics.

click here for all of it

If you're feeling confused about this whole "right and wrong" thing these days when you see all this shit about North Korea and what our responsibility is and whatnot, I recommend paying a visit to nader.org and reading Ralph's latest rants about Iraq.

I haven' read it all, as I write this, but it seems pretty entertaining at least.

I don't mean to blog once a month...

I can think of two people who read this blog, and to you two guys, I'm sorry I never post anymore.

I don't have internet at my house, hopefully once we move to our new location I will be able to get online regularly and with time to do stuff like this. I've blogged from UNO's library before but I've been doing actual work there lately for this "school" thing that I'm signed up for.

Politics: Ummmm, I'm going to be voting for the first time this year. Kind of exciting, I'm casting my govenatorial vote for independent Kinky Friedman for governor of Texas. If anyone has found a reason not to vote for him please let me know; I've read his site a few times and he seems like the best choice, suprisingly progressive. He's not some hopeless joke candidate who's doomed from the start, he looks like he could really win and he's got some good ideas despite his dumb ass ways of relating to dumb ass Texans.

Speaking of elections, I really don't think the Republicans are going down this mid term. Its okay, if they haven't dug their grave deeply enough yet, two more years should be enough to get rid of them for a while.

Keep stopping by guys (John and Ron), I'll get back in the blog habbit eventually. Haha, Ron-John.

"Islam, which I consider to be a cult religion"

I've been going to church at this place in Metarie called Calvary Chapel. Its this seemingly very cool non-denominational church that is oriented to more youthful and chilled out people. However, the particular pastor at the Metarie Calvary Chapel is a TOTAL fundamentalist.

All of the sermons that I've heard him give so far have included the following themes: 1)We're right 2)They're wrong 3)There can only be one Truth and that is the word of Jesus Christ, everything else is wrong.

This morning "Pastor Dave" (as I think of him in my mind, I can't remember his real name) once again got around to talking negatively about Islam. The exact term that he used was "cult religion" and my memory's quote is, "...Islam, which I consider to be a cult religion...". In all my life of going to church (pretty much every single sunday of my life, without fail) I have never heard a pastor blatently regard another religion as a "cult". But here's the real kicker: a few weeks ago, we had a guest pastor. I think this guy was from Colorado, he's the pastor for another Calvary Chapel. His views were not much different at all. His exact words were, "There's no life in Muhammad! There's no life in Buddha! There's no life in ME!". Once again, a Calvary Chapel minister openly disputed and denied other faiths.

I'm seriously thinking about bringing my minidisc recorder to a sermon and recording what this guy at the Metarie Calvary Chapel says. Its not suprising that these guys were from a non-denominaitonal church; they probably don't have to answer to as much authority as your standard Methodist or Baptist, or especially Catholic ministers, do.

The testimony of just two prechers probably does not reflect the belief of Calvary Chapel as a whole organization, but it does bring some questions to my mind. Particularly, could this be a church that America needs to look out for? Moreso than southern Baptist churches or the TV evangelicals?

That last blog sucked

What I was trying to say yesterday was that I started off last week with a lot of confusion about my classes. I just now straightened out my last problem and am feeling much better about my time here. I should probably be reading up on these issues that are coming up in my English class regarding the New Orleans tax assessor consolidation and the levee board consolidation, but whatever.

I just now had my first guitar lesson ever. I can't wait to kick ass. Its going to happen pretty soon.

The stuff I said yesterday about not making any friends is pretty true, but I do know a few graduate students who go to this church that my brother and I have been going to on Sundays, they're really nice.

I really do feel pretty out of control still, but at least I have a chance to get over it now that I've gotten all my class conflicts straightened out. I'll blog about political stuff soon.

My first weeks of college

I haven't blogged in a while. I am currently living in Gretna, LA (West Bank, yo!) with my brother Travis, and we don't have internet access right now. We're going to be moving to a different house in a few weeks.

Anyway, UNO has been a pretty flabergasting experience so far. I've been feeling quite out of control of my life for the past few weeks because I can't get on the net at any time that I want and I missed my first class of college because I didn't even know that I was supposed to be there! I found out the next day that there are three parts to this music theory course that I'm taking, at least I've got my schedule figured out now, I think.

I've got this constant feeling like I'm doing something wrong, like I'm forgetting something, or like there's another piece of important information that I'm unaware of. Every moment that I get to relax, I've got this fog in the back of my mind that says there's somewhere else that I'm supposed to be. And my dad keeps emailing me saying we're out of daytime minutes on our cell phone plan, haha.

The weirdest thing about this experience so far is that I haven't made a SINGLE friend yet, nor even had a conversation with any of my classmates. Nor do I feel like I'm accepted by them, as if that mattered. I go to school, sit in the front, listen to the instructors, do what they say, and leave without having shared anything with anyone. The only exception would have to have been yesterday at my ensemble class. At least I actually talked to a few people.

I must seem depressed but I expect things to improve.

George Allen’s Macaca

From Crooks and Liars:

Sen. George Allen has a funny way of communicating with the only non-white at an all Republican event.

S.R. Sidarth, a senior at the University of Virginia, had been trailing Allen with a video camera to document his travels and speeches for the Webb campaign. During a campaign speech Friday in Breaks, Virginia, near the Kentucky border, Allen singled out Sidarth and called him a word that sounded like "Macaca."

"Lets give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia," said Allen, who then began talking about the "war on terror." In an interview, Sidarth said he suspects Allen singled him out because he was the only non-white face in the audience, which he estimated included about 100 Republican supporters.

He could have at least asked him his name since he’s been around his campaign. And yes, what does he mean by Macaca?

If spelled M-a-c-a-c-a, the term refers to a species of monkeys in the Eastern Hemisphere. "Is he saying Sidarth is a monkey?" [Webb spokesperson Kristian Denny] Todd asked. The word M-a-k-a-k-a refers to a town in South Africa. Todd accused Wadhams of "reaching" for an explanation for Allen’s comments. "The kid has a name. This is trying to demean him, to minimize him as a person," Todd said.

Click here to see the original post from Crooks and Liars.

Here's the video below. I don't need to comment any further on this because its completely clear from this video that George Allen is a complete douche bag and should be sacked.

"The best one we've had so far"

I was eating at a taquaria in Pasadena, Texas yesterday with my boss, Larry, and two of his other employees. There was a picture of "The Mexican Elvis" on the wall; I didn't catch what his name was but the story about his alleged assassination by a past Mexican president led Larry to start talking about how "everyone wants to hang Bush". He actually said that President Bush is the best president that our country has had so far! Then he went on about how we should ANNEX ALL OF MEXICO.

He didn't explain why Bush is the best, so I'll explain why Bush is the worst.

1. The tax cuts that "help the economy" are really only helping the corporate elites who benefit from them the most. A glance at some of the numbers may tell you that the economy is strong right now, but a glance at any current personal bankruptcy statistic will show you that something is very wrong. If the economy is doing so well, why are so many people filing for bankruptcy these days? Why hasn't the minimum wage increased since 1997?

2. King George has changed the purpose of the war in Iraq twice now. Before 9/11, he was perpared to go to war because of the whole "No Fly Zone" thing. Immediately after 9/11, Iraq was supposedly stocking up on nukes. Now after thousands of our troops have already died not to mention a countless amount of Iraqi civilians, we're there to "promote democracy" in the region or "restore peace/freedom/stability", whichever sounds right at the time. How he has gotten away with this is completely beyond me.

3. His first veto of his career squelched research that could likely find cures or treatments to currently incurable diseases. His explanation was that stem cell research kills innocent life, even though the research would be done on stem cells that were never going to live in the first place.

4. Lets not forget that whole "Mission Accomplished" fiasco. That was just stupid. (He's the first president to appear in military uniform while in office, only preceded elsewhere by people like Castro and other totalitarian types).

5. He has not shown any kind of concern about the coruption of the Mexican government--corruption which forces so many Mexicans to flee here (sometimes legally). In fact, Bush's relationship with Vicente Fox (Mexico's current president) is quite a friendly one.

6. His administration's shaky consistency on getting permission for domestic wire tapping (which has always been approved when they actually ask for it) is suspicious at best.

7. His old "Axis of Evil" remarks jeopardized relations between South and North Korea, as well as secular progress in Iran. There was a tremendous amout of normalization being made, but North Korea shut its doors to the South after Bush put them in his Axis of Evil. Also, many people in Iran were becoming religiously tolerant and non-violent, but after Bush's remarks they fled back to the Ayatollas and other Islamic fundamentalist leaders.

Need I go on? You could find just as many bad things about every president that we've had, but in no way could anyone in their right mind truely believe that Bush has been the best.

Roots of hardcore

Dead Boys, 1977