It has come to my attention that I owe this blog some stories.

I don't have any.

The bullshit is so deep you need wings to keep above it. Lying to the country about a blowjob is an impeachable offense but lying about a national threat is a buck that stops everywhere but in the Oval Office. Rich Conservatives are buying a Governorship in California, Hypocrite Supreme William Bennett makes the rounds of the talking head TV shows trying to rehabilitate his sullied reputation as arbiter of morals in America, and the national media does the Administrations PR work by showing pictures and video of dead bodies to show 'progress' in the War. Armed Forces stretched too thin around the world? Don't rethink the militarization of foreign policy, increase the size of the military! Civil rights and personal liberties infringed by Patriot Act I? How about even more repression with Patriot Act II! Democrats object to your midnight rewrite of a bill in committee? Call the Capitol Police when they try to regroup in the cafeteria next door and attempt to have them arrested!

I'm pissed off at the barely disguised Fascism that Republicans pass off as "Leadership", and even more pissed off at the Moron Majority of Americans whom don't notice or don't care. I fear the Bush Administration will allow a terrorist strike in the US so they can maintain the climate of fear, and will aid and/or abet the assassination of the Democratic Nominee for President if their "October Surprise" fails to materialize.

Osama has won. He has destroyed the America I grew up in, and his Weapon of Mass Destruction is George W. Bush.
posted at 2:05 AM

Fear and Loathing in the Fourth Reich,
or 'Who's in charge here?'

BRUSSELS -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld threatened to ban U.S. officials from visiting Belgium and withhold money for a new NATO headquarters if the country does not change a law that has allowed citizens to bring war-crime allegations against Gen. Tommy Franks and other top U.S. leaders.

Funny, I thought the President and the State Department made foreign policy, not the Secretary of War.
posted at 7:40 AM

Fear and Loathing in the Fourth Reich,
or "Another Santayana Moment"

[from the New York Times Thur. June 5th]
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, in five hours of testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, made his first public comments on a report from his inspector general that criticized the department's treatment of 762 illegal immigrants after Sept. 11. He said "we make no apologies" for holding suspects as long necessary to determine whether they had links to terrorism. In the end, none (!) of the 762 suspects were charged as terrorists. Democrats said they were particularly concerned about the report released on Monday by Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department's inspector general. The report found "significant problems" in the way the authorities arrested and treated hundreds of illegal immigrants as part of the Sept. 11 investigation. The report found that the authorities had made little effort to distinguish real terrorist suspects from those who became ensnared by chance in the investigation. Many suspects were jailed for months, often without being formally charged or given access to lawyers, and some inmates in Brooklyn were physically and verbally abused before they were cleared of any terrorist ties, the report said.

Obviously we have learned nothing from the round-ups of Japanese-Americans during World War II. What was recognized as a low point in American History is now being intentionally repeated in the name of 'National Security'. The nationalities have changed but the excuses remain the same. Which group of Hyphenated-Americans will be next to face a "Justice" Department round up? Liberal? French? Homosexual? Of all the hyphenated groups in America, Jews should be the most alarmed by this development in-as-much as they have the most recent experience with being a hated religion and the effects of runaway Nationalism. And if Jewish-Americans don't raise their voices in support of Muslim-Americans, then that implies a failure to learn from history and the only problem with The Holocaust was that it happened to the Jews and not somebody else.
posted at 3:24 AM

Fear and Loathing in the Fourth Reich,
or "The Tyrany of the Majority".

"We're just not going to negotiate with them. If we negotiate on this we'll be negotiating on every calendar, every bill, every day."
- Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick of the Texas Legislature, on the 51 Democrats whom fled Texas rather than Rubber-stamp a redistricting plan pushed by U.S. House Majority leader Tom DeLay (R - TX).
Craddick ordered police on Monday to track down the runaway legislators and return them to the House floor, forcibly if needed.
On Tuesday, plainclothes state police investigators nabbed Rep. Helen Giddings as she got into her car in Austin. "We picked her up outside of her apartment and we escorted her to the House chambers to the sergeant-at-arms," Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Tom Vinger said.

Wasn't Politics supposed to be the 'Art of the Compromise'? Since when did Politics involve Troopers, Arrest Warrants, and people being held against their will?
Oops, for a moment there I thought I was talking about America - Land of the Free. Is this what Emperor Bush II has planned for the rest of us?
posted at 1:31 AM

"Gunfight at the 40,000 foot Corral"
Has anybody else ever heard of the term "Explosive Decompression"? Has anybody else ever heard of the phrase "Closing The Barn Door After The Horse Has Escaped."?
(Why is Common Sense so uncommon?)

4/19/2003
Warning: Rant Modification!
I have been told by trusted sources that Explosive Decompression is a Hollywood fiction, and that most modern airliners can stand a bullet-sized hole without blowing up. (Despite the news of a Soviet-era cargo jet that lost it's rear cargo door over the Congo and a couple dozen people were sucked out to their deaths...)
OK.
I still don't like the idea of bullets passing through any of the avionics, computers, or hydraulics that line the walls, floor, and ceiling of a "Glass" cockpit.
And given the current inflation of the term "Hero" in the mainstream press, what Red-Blooded American Male isn't going to jump at the chance to play hero if somebody they find even remotely suspicious approaches the reinforced, locked from the inside, cockpit door (Like, maybe, the undercover Air Marshall?).
No, this is going to end badly when a cockpit voice recorder reveals a gunbattle between Testosterone poisoned Americans killed a planeload of people.
posted at 6:32 AM

"Operation Oil Company Freedom"
The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which helps enforce sanctions against terrorists, drug dealers and foreign countries - such as Cuba, Iran, Iraq and North Korea - charged Chevron/Texaco with trade violations in it's dealings with Saddam Hussein's government and the U.N. "Oil-for-Food" program. In order to quietly settle the government charges Chevron/Texaco paid fines totaling about $14,000.

That's all, $14,000. Barely enough money to buy a new car, as a fine against one of the largest oil companies in the world.

And you wonder why I'm such a cynical bastard...
posted at 4:21 AM

"Fear and Loathing in the Fourth Reich"
Or "Death of Freedom of the Press, Part 2"

NYSE Revokes Credentials for Al-Jazeera
By TERESA AGOVINO, AP Business Writer
NEW YORK - The Arab TV network Al-Jazeera said Monday two of it's reporters covering the New York Stock Exchange have had their credentials revoked because of the satellite station's coverage of the war in Iraq.
Exchange spokesman Ray Pellechia denied the station's war coverage was the cause. Citing "security reasons," he said the exchange had chosen to limit the number of broadcasters working at the lower Manhattan exchange since the war began, giving access only to networks that focus "on responsible business coverage."
Al-Jazeera said it got a letter from the exchange saying the number of accredited TV stations needed to be reduced. It said reporters Ammar al-Sankari and Ramzi Shiber had their credentials withdrawn. The network said the reason was "Al-Jazeera's coverage of the war on Iraq." It said it has covered the exchange for years and believes it is the only channel affected by the new curbs. Pellechia said other broadcasters had been refused accreditation or permission to increase their staff, but he declined to give examples.
U.S. military officials on Sunday criticized Al-Jazeera for carrying Iraqi TV footage of U.S. prisoners of war.
Al-Jazeera is based in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, which also hosts the U.S. military's Central Command for the region. The station has gained a reputation as an unusually independent voice in a region where many news media are government-controlled.
Ghazi Khankan of the Council on American-Islamic Relations decried the move, saying Al-Jazeera "is really one of the very few independent Arab media, and to cut them off is a loss to the stock exchange."
He said he understood the sensitivity of the footage of U.S. captives, "but I don't think this is the right thing to do in spite of the sad pictures."
posted at 4:00 AM