Quotable

"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."
– George Orwell

Strip Seach Anyone?

" It's been four years since Richard Reid attempted to set fire to his explosive shoes on that Paris-Miami flight, and thanks to him we still do our little dance in our socks through airport security, a testimony to the power of the individual to gum up the works for millions of others. Just could you imagine how we would look like in those security lines if he had attempted to scoot through with an underwear bomb?"
--Garrison Keillor

This Guys is Just Great...

village voice > news > by Mark Fiore: "'Toon Trouble: What Would Jesus Do?"

Hah...

Just something funny I found

The Beginning of the End?

"Most Americans have little or no choice of broadband I.S.P.'s, so they would have few options if those providers shifted away from neutrality. Congress should protect access to the Internet in its current form. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, says he intends to introduce an Internet neutrality bill, which would prohibit I.S.P.'s from favoring content providers that paid them fees, or from giving priority to their own content.

Some I.S.P.'s are phone and cable companies that make large campaign contributions, and are used to getting their way in Washington. But Americans feel strongly about an open and free Internet. Net neutrality is an issue where the public interest can and should trump the special interests."

Tollbooths on the Internet Highway

Dick "Buckshot" Chaney... Pass It On!

:)

Voice of Reason

When morons are at the helm and collude with racist and ultra right wing governments, the voice of reason is really like a breath of fresh air... Fifty bucks says it will land on deaf ears.

"During this time of fluidity in the formation of the new government, it is important that Israel and the United States play positive roles. Any tacit or formal collusion between the two powers to disrupt the process by punishing the Palestinian people could be counterproductive and have devastating consequences.

Unfortunately, these steps are already underway and are well known throughout the Palestinian territories and the world. Israel moved yesterday to withhold funds (about $50 million per month) that the Palestinians earn from customs and tax revenue. Perhaps a greater aggravation by the Israelis is their decision to hinder movement of elected Hamas Palestinian Legislative Council members through any of more than a hundred Israeli checkpoints around and throughout the Palestinian territories. This will present significant obstacles to a government's functioning effectively. Abbas informed me after the election that the Palestinian Authority was $900 million in debt and that he would be unable to meet payrolls during February. Knowing that Hamas would inherit a bankrupt government, U.S. officials have announced that all funding for the new government will be withheld, including what is needed to pay salaries for schoolteachers, nurses, social workers, police and maintenance personnel. So far they have not agreed to bypass the Hamas-led government and let humanitarian funds be channeled to Palestinians through United Nations agencies responsible for refugees, health and other human services.

This common commitment to eviscerate the government of elected Hamas officials by punishing private citizens may accomplish this narrow purpose, but the likely results will be to alienate the already oppressed and innocent Palestinians, to incite violence, and to increase the domestic influence and international esteem of Hamas. It will certainly not be an inducement to Hamas or other militants to moderate their policies."

Don't Punish the Palestinians:

It's the Euros Stupid...

Irak, Syria. Venezuela and Iran have all announced they will begin using Euros instead of Dollars as the basis for the trade of goods and oil... Funny how the Bushies all call them terrorists!

"Now, a new attempt is being made against the petrodollar system. Iran, another member of the “axis of evil,” has announced her plans to initiate an oil bourse in March of this year. Guess what, the oil sales will be priced Euros, not dollars."

The End of Dollar Hegemony by Ron Paul

Yeah... But Who Cares...?

"The nuclear threat from Iran is hardly urgent. As the Washington Post reported in August 2005, the latest consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies is that 'Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years.' The Institute for Science and International Security estimated that while Iran could have a bomb by 2009 at the earliest, the US intelligence community assumed technical difficulties would cause 'significantly delay.' The director of Middle East Studies at Brown University and a specialist in Middle Eastern energy economics both called the State Department's claims of a proliferation threat from Iran's Bushehr reactor 'demonstrably false,' concluding that 'the physical evidence for a nuclear weapons program in Iran simply does not exist.'

So there's no urgency - just a bad case of déjà vu all over again. The Bush administration is recycling its hype over Hussein's supposed WMD threat into rhetoric about Iran, but look where the charade got us last time: tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, a country teetering on civil war and increased global terrorism."

Bam...!!

Quotable

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious."
– General Smedley Butler

What is Good For the Goose...

... Must be good for the gander.

If Israel is refusing to talk peace, why surprise over Hammas refusing to talk peace?

"ISLAMIST group Hamas took over as the dominant party in the Palestinian parliament yesterday and swiftly rejected President Mahmoud Abbas' call to pursue his peacemaking efforts with Israel."

Hamas takes power but rejects peace talks

Fuck You Rice...

How much shit can these people shovel for our consumption? Watch and see...

"Iran, she alleged, was the central banker for terrorism around the world and was working with Syria to destabilise the Middle East."

Rice: Iran is terrorism 'banker'

The New Bond Girl

I dunno... Maybe it's just a bad picture.


French Actress Eva Green Named Next "Bond Girl"

Chaney Bear

Going Nowhere...

Nothing Like a Blow Job

"Candy Crowley just said:

'Assuming that nothing else comes up, I suspect this fades.'

Now if Cheney had received fellatio and hidden it from his wife instead of drinking beer while on medication, shooting a man at close range and hiding it from the public, the story might not fade. Not because they would be concerned about his personal sex life, of course. It would be because of what it said about the his character. "

From Hullabaloo

Quotable

"Vice President Dick Cheney, while hunting wild geese in the Rose Garden, accidentally shot President Bush twice, once in the heart and once in the head. 'I didn't really shoot the President twice,' said Cheney. 'The second time I shot him, I was president'."

Steve Martin on The Huffington Post

Step 6a Sounds pretty Good!

There are so many instances of what can only be interpreted as paranoid behavior, incompetence, misinformation, scandals in various states of legal and journalistic illumination, or blatant lying, now plaguing this White House, that just trying to keep up with them all is bewildering. But from Loose-lips Libby to Heckuva-job Brownie to Dead-eye Dick, perhaps a useful unifying framework to keep it all sorted out is the apparent Bush and Company gub'mint playbook:

* Step 1: Screw-up
* Step 2: Evade, spin, and Cover-up
* Step 3: When it's too late Show-up
* Step 4: Quietly Lawyer-up
* Step 5: Finally, promise to cooperate and then Clam-up

Maybe the powers that be lost the next page out of the playbook, or they would know Step 5 is traditionally followed by Step 6 in which voters demonstrate at the polls that they're fed-up. Or Step 6a; after which the guilty and the complicit are locked-up.

From Daily Kos

Yep...Yep...

...I am an idiot!

Travel and Leisure!

I am not sure I like living in China.

My government secretly eavesdrop on my conversations with my family;
My government can look up books I may choose to check out at my local library;
My government can put me in jail, without charges and held me for years;
My government can abduct me, ship me to the Cuban Island where I can be tortured;
My government has been in violation of Human Rights according to the United Nation;
My government has been accused of torture according to the United Nations;
My "President" contends that he is above all laws and has planery powers to decree what he wants and when he wants it.

...

On top of that, everything around me is made in China (even the little flag pin I got)...

...

Who knew I can be living in China without leaving home!

Quotable

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
– William Pitt

Event the Cato Institute...

... See the absurdity in all this.

"A consensus is gradually emerging in the United States that Washington and its allies must take whatever action is necessary to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Various options are advocated, from U.N.-mandated economic sanctions to airstrikes on suspected nuclear installations to active subversion of the mullah-controlled regime in Tehran.

All of these options are based on key assumptions about both the probable conduct of the Iranian government and the underlying political situation in Iran. Unfortunately, many of those assumptions are dubious at best."
Dubious Assumptions about Iran

Ok...It's a Start!

Really... Who Would Have Thunk It...?

Ex-CIA Official Faults Use of Data on Iraq

The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

The End of the Internet

"According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets -- corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers -- would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out."

AlterNet: MediaCulture: The End of the Internet

Back in 1998 I wrote a paper for school which predicted just that.
See it here.

Who Would Have Thunk It...?

"Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, told a grand jury that he was authorized by his 'superiors' to disclose classified information to reporters about Iraq's weapons capability in June and July 2003, according to a document filed by a federal prosecutor."

Ex-Cheney Aide Testified Leak Was Ordered, Prosecutor Says

This is a Test

I am using "performancing" to post this... let's see if it works.

Credit Card Sharks

By Jim Sollisch

There's a new law that forces credit card issuers to increase the minimum monthly payments borrowers must make. The good news is that borrowers will pay much less in interest over time. Nevertheless, many consumers might still be better off owing a loan shark money than a credit card company. Here are seven ruthless practices that credit card issuers engage in and loan sharks don't:

1. Loan sharks don't raise your interest rate if you're late paying a bill to another creditor. According to an ABC News report, 44 percent of credit card agreements contain a universal default penalty, which allows the issuer to increase the borrower's rate if a payment to another creditor is missed or late. Here's an example from Chase Manhattan Bank's cardholder agreement as reported in the 2004 New York Times series on credit cards: "The highest rate (28.49 percent) may be charged if the cardholder is late making a payment to any creditor; this can include phone and utility bills, car payments and the like -- even if credit card payments are made on time." So if you agree to accept a credit card with an 8 percent interest rate, and you make your payments on time for several years, your rate can suddenly jump to 28.49 percent. All you have to do is misplace your gas bill for a couple of days and be late on your payment.

2. Loan sharks don't solicit. The credit card industry sends out 5 billion solicitations a year in the United States alone, according to cardweb.com. Many of these solicitations go to people who don't even have jobs, such as my 20-year-old son, Zack, a college student. He gets at least one credit card offer a day. As far as I know, he's never been approached by a loan shark.

3. Loan sharks don't change the terms whenever they want. And if they do, they aren't bold enough to put it into print, as Bank One does on its Visa Card term sheet. Of course the print is quite fine. It reads: "We reserve the right to change the terms at any time for any reason." I assume "any reason" includes, "We'd just like to increase our profits." Or "We don't like your last name." Or "Let's raise the rates of everyone who has an odd-numbered address."

4. Loan sharks don't penalize you for paying off your debt. According to ABC News, some credit card agreements contain a no-balance fee: You can be charged a fee when your balance reaches zero.

5. Loan sharks don't charge you for not borrowing more money. Some credit card issuers actually charge a $15 monthly fee if your card remains inactive for more than six months.

[I'll be watching....]

6. Loan sharks don't make you sign a document that says that you can't sue them. Granted, they have their ways to encourage you to avoid this step. But Chase Manhattan Bank's cardholder agreement plainly and clearly makes you agree to give up your constitutional right to sue: "The cardholder cannot take the issuer to court or be included in a class-action suit against the company."

7. Loan sharks don't lobby the government to make it harder for you to go bankrupt. Banks and credit card issuers spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress in favor of the 2005 bankruptcy bill.

Last time I checked, loan sharking was still illegal. The banking industry's questionable practices are fully protected under the law. If ever an industry needed to be more tightly regulated, it's credit card lending. A shark is a shark, even if it wears a suit and works in a building with marble floors.

Jim Sollisch is a writer in Cleveland.

Who Is Watching the Watchers?

"The program has touched many more Americans than that. Surveillance takes place in several stages, officials said, the earliest by machine. Computer-controlled systems collect and sift basic information about hundreds of thousands of faxes, e-mails and telephone calls into and out of the United States before selecting the ones for scrutiny by human eyes and ears.

Successive stages of filtering grow more intrusive as artificial intelligence systems rank voice and data traffic in order of likeliest interest to human analysts. But intelligence officers, who test the computer judgments by listening initially to brief fragments of conversation, 'wash out' most of the leads within days or weeks.

The scale of warrantless surveillance, and the high proportion of bystanders swept in, sheds new light on Bush's circumvention of the courts. National security lawyers, in and out of government, said the washout rate raised fresh doubts about the program's lawfulness under the Fourth Amendment, because a search cannot be judged 'reasonable' if it is based on evidence that experience shows to be unreliable. Other officials said the disclosures might shift the terms of public debate, altering perceptions about the balance between privacy lost and security gained."

Surveillance Net Yields Few Suspects

About the Memo

"My informed hunch is that this document is real. If so, how will the White House respond? Will members of the press corps at 1600 Pennsylvania press the point? This revelation—which is more shocking than anything in the Downing Street Memos—should be major news here. But will it?"
--David Corn

The World is My Oyster

"PRESIDENT BUSH had plans to lure Saddam Hussein into war by flying an aircraft over Iraq painted in UN colours in the hope he would shoot it down, a book reveals.

Mr Bush told Tony Blair of the extraordinary plan during a meeting in the White House on January 31, 2003, six weeks before the war started, according to an updated version of Lawless World by Philippe Sands, a human rights lawyer. He says the President made it clear that he had already decided to go to war, despite still pressing for a UN resolution.

“The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach,” the book reports Mr Bush telling Mr Blair at the meeting.

If the U2 idea was a serious proposal, it would have made sense only if the spy plane was ordered to fly at an altitude within range of Iraqi missiles. Mr Bush’s reference in the recorded conversation to the U2 being escorted by fighter aircraft indicates that that is what he had in mind. "

Bush 'tried to lure Saddam into war using UN aircraft

Mind Game...

Time For A Joke...

A woman is flying down the highway and gets pulled over.

Cop: "Miss, do you realize how fast you were travelling?"

Woman: "Yes, officer, but I'm late for work, and I have a really
important job."

Cop: "Oh, yeah? What do you do?"

Woman: "I'm a rectum stretcher."

Cop: "A what?"

Woman: "It's not that bad. I put on gloves and get them all lubed
up. I start with one finger of my right hand, move it around, move
it around, then I stick in a second finger, move it around, then
another finger. Pretty soon I can get my whole hand in. Then I start
with one finger of my left hand, then another and another. Soon I
got both hands in. Then I slowly spread them apart till the anus is
about six feet wide."

Cop: "SIX FEET? What do you do with a six foot asshole?"


Woman: "Oh, I just give it a radar gun and put it under a bridge."

Quotable

“Some legal questions are hard. This one is not. The President’s authorizing of NSA to spy on Americans is blatantly unlawful.”
—Geoffrey Stone, University of Chicago law professor

Way to Go EFF... :)

"AT&T has been named a defendant in a class action lawsuit that claims the telecommunications company illegally cooperated with the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping program.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in San Francisco's federal district court, charges that AT&T has opened its telecommunications facilities up to the NSA and continues to 'to assist the government in its secret surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans.'

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the suit, says AT&T's alleged cooperation violates free speech and privacy rights found in the U.S. Constitution and also contravenes federal wiretapping law, which prohibits electronic surveillance 'except as authorized by statute.'"

AT&T sued over NSA spy program

Lies and More Lies...

"A guide to the truth behind the lies and fabrications in George Bush's State of the Union speech to Congress."

State of the Union, Sliced and Diced