Young Hillary Clinton

McCain = Bush Ad

Who would guess that I subscribe to Moveon.org's mailing list, huh?

Explained: Why McCain favors long presence in Iraq

From Harper's Magazine.

Explained: Why McCain favors long presence in Iraq

From MSNBC:

A little-noticed civil lawsuit in Florida is shining a light on an unusual but hugely profitable Pentagon contract to ship millions of gallons of aviation fuel to U.S. bases in Iraq through the kingdom of Jordan. The deal involves a cast of influential characters, including the king of Jordan’s brother-in-law, who is suing Harry Sargeant III, a top Florida-based fundraiser for Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid. Sargeant is a Florida businessman and former Marine Corps pilot hailed by the McCain campaign as a “Trailblazer” for raising $100,000 or more in political donations. Through a company called International Oil Trading Co., or IOTC, Sargeant and a partner have a lucrative contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year to supply American military forces in Iraq with fuel, especially aviation fuel.

MORE Washington Babylon...

We Don't Torture... Do We?

We Don't Torture... Do We?

"You and I"

One of my greatest pet peeves is people using "I" or "we" when they should use "me" or "us" because they think it makes them sound smarter. This is almost always done in a plural sense such as "you and I" instead of "you and me." As soon as I hear someone say something like, "They did this just for you and I" my estimate of them drops to near contempt. One would not say, "They did this just for I." One would say, "They did this just for me." Why is this difficult for people?

That song by Bill Withers makes me angry every time I hear it. "Just the two of us, building castles in the sky, just the two of us, you and I" may rhyme better but it's straight up wrong.

What caused today's little rant was Lynne Rossetto Kasper use "we" instead of "us" on her public radio show The Splendid Table and she went from an overly jovial cooking host to a windbag in my opinion.

Can you imagine what 8 years of listening to President Bush has done to me?

300 MPG

I want one!

Bill O'Reilly: Piece of Shit from Way Back [analysis]

Keith Olbermann brings on a "body language expert" to examine Bill O'Reilly's blow-up.




Found on the Huffington Post.

McCain Talks to Hamas?

There's been a recent spat of attacks on unnamed persons by the Bush administration and the McCain campaign for wanting to negotiate with "terrorists." One shill has proposed that the attacks are aimed at President Carter for talking with Hamas. In reality the attacks are aimed at Obama who has said he will talk with our enemies , like any wise leader, and the Democratic Party which gives endless lip service to peace. I would hope that most Americans would agree that diplomacy would be in order as opposed to ignoring and/or trying to murder everyone that opposes us... as "some people" have done.

So "McCain subsequently said Obama must explain why he wants to talk with rogue leaders" and "I made it very clear, at that time, before and after, that we will not negotiate with terrorist organizations, that Hamas would have to abandon their terrorism, their advocacy to the extermination of the state of Israel, and be willing to negotiate in a way that recognizes the right of the state of Israel and abandons their terrorist position and advocacy."

My question is, how did he tell Hamas they needed to change unless he talked to them?

Was he shooting at them as he talked? Or maybe he was shouting?

Bill O'Reilly: Piece of Shit from Way Back [unseen footage]

If only this were real:



Thanks to John over at Uncertain Times.

Blu

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Just watch it.

Bill O'Reilly: Piece of Shit from Way Back

What a tool. Why is this man still on the television? Oh, right. Because it's America and we're a bunch of drooling idiots.

Michigan & Florida Delegates

Hillary keeps saying the delegates for Michigan and Florida should be seated at the convention. To me this is the equivalent of showing up for a basketball game after everyone else has been told it's canceled, shooting some freethrows, and then demanding it be counted as a win. Michigan and Florida screwed up and they should be denied any meaningful seats. I don't mind if they're divided evenly between the two candidates and allowed to attend but giving the States to Hillary would be a travesty.

Hillary Realizes the End is Near

A secret recording made inside Hillary's campaign bunker:

A Little Reminder

Keep your eye on this story. I wonder how long until Bloch gets a Medal of Freedom and a full Presidential pardon.

Einstein Was a Good Atheist

What he wrote

• The Guardian,
• Tuesday May 13 2008
• Article history

About this article

This article appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday May 13 2008 on p3 of the Top stories section. It was last updated at 11:58 on May 13 2008.

An abridgement of the letter from Albert Einstein to Eric Gutkind from Princeton in January 1954, translated from German by Joan Stambaugh. It will be sold at Bloomsbury auctions on Thursday

... I read a great deal in the last days of your book, and thank you very much for sending it to me. What especially struck me about it was this. With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common.

... The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the priviliege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolisation. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, ie in our evalutations of human behaviour. What separates us are only intellectual 'props' and 'rationalisation' in Freud's language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things. With friendly thanks and best wishes

Yours, A. Einstein

Four Dollar Gas

I've been saying this for a couple of years now: the oil companies are going to keep pushing the upward boundaries of gas prices by jerking them up and down. $3.80 today, $4.00 tomorrow, $3.90 the day after, this is the way they continue to suck us dry and fill their coffers to overflowing. Here in Louisville some gas stations have already passed the $4.00 mark despite the fact that the gasoline they are selling was manufactured weeks ago when the price of oil was $20 or so less per barrel. Oddly enough, when the price of oil drops the price of gasoline will stay high for several weeks. If there was ever a commodity that needed State control, oil is it. Line the CEO's of the big oil companies up against a wall.

Hillary v Vending Machine

I'm pretty sure the machine she's failing to get coffee from is a lot like the machines in most Lowe's stores which are used successfully by many thousands of dumbass contractors daily. BTW, the music sucks ass so you'll want to turn it down. Feels like America's Stupidest Crap from Home Videos to me.

My Favorite Podcasts

Here are my top five podcasts of the moment:

1. On the Media Possibly the best weekly news show on the radio simply because they spend the hour looking at what the media has been looking at and how they're doing it (or aren't). If you're like most news junkies you get plenty of day by day or minute by minute news coverage. How often do you examine the lense(s) through which your news is delivered? From bottom feeding scum like Rush Limbaugh to actual news organizations, Bob and Brook examine the stuff in the filter.

2. Le Show Every week Harry Shearer brings you up to date and fills in the gaps as he reads "The Apologies of the Week," "News from Outside the Bubble," "News of the Warm," "The Trades," investigates buried leads, and offers up phone calls between the President (is he still in office?) and his dad, mom, etc., "Dick Cheney: Confidential" and many more irregular features. This show has been broadcast for over 25 years and is available on a gazillion radio stations, shortwave, satellite, netcast, and podcast. The online version has the advantage of letting you hear the excellent music Harry plays.

3. Radiolab This show is something else. It takes the sonic possibilities of the medium to their extremes. Nothing else sounds like it and in many ways nothing else approaches the content. This is an advantage of the small number of new shows per year. The drawback is there are so few shows per year.

4. This American Life I don't need to say much about this show. It's the only radio program that I can almost bet will bring tears to my eyes at some point and make me laugh at another (or at the same time). Beautiful writing, production, and musical selections, masterful story telling and easy flow. The television show is also tremendous.

5. BBC Radio Comedy I'm kind of cheating by lumping these together but I'm going to anyway. The Friday Night Comedy Hour is reliably funny. "The Now Show" changes places with "The News Quiz" every month or so. I like "The News Quiz" better. There are a couple of comedy DJ duos I enjoy as well.

Corruption? KBR?!? In Iraq?!?

Stealing from our troops and government?!? A company that split off from a company owned by the Vice President?!? Tell me it ain't so.

It's so.

Allegations of widespread mismanagement and corruption among private contractors in Iraq are nothing new; if anything, tales of cronyism, over-billing, and embezzlement have become so frequent that our national tolerance for them seems only to have increased as the Iraq War has drawn on. Even so, the testimony earlier this week of three whistleblowers before the Senate's Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) stands out for the sheer outrageousness of their accusations—namely that U.S. private contractors looted Iraqi palaces and ministries, stole military equipment, fenced supplies destined for U.S. troops, and even operated a prostitution ring that may have contributed to the death of fellow contractor. Yet despite its focus on such salacious matters as sex and corruption, the session earned little media attention.

Optical Illusions

Some people find these images make them dizzy. These are all static images that just appear to move.





Each image links to the website of Akiyoshi Kitaoka. There are hundreds of these optical illusions, just click on the "latest works" links.

Warning: This page contains some works of "anomalous motion illusion", which might make sensitive observers dizzy or sick. Should you feel dizzy, you had better leave this page immediately. More

A Joke

Q: Why do white Southerners not like John McCain?
A: They heard he might be an abolitionist.

A Joke

I've decided to live every day as if it were the last day of my life: lying in bed and slipping in and out of consciousness.

McCain Vows to Replace Secret Service...

...With His Own Bare Fists


McCain Vows To Replace Secret Service With His Own Bare Fists

From the Onion.

A Joke

Q: How do you make a platypus a soul singer?
A: Put it in the microwave until its bill withers.

Stolen from BBC Radio 4's News Quiz.

Cheese Dreams

According to the British Cheese Board cheese before bed does not cause nightmares but can effect the content of your dreams. I wish I had some Stilton or maybe a nice French blue cheese to have before bed...

Stilton -eating participants enjoyed their sleep too – over two thirds had good sleep experiences during five out of the seven nights. However, if you want some vivid or crazy dreams, the King of British cheeses is the one for you – particularly if you are female. While 75% of men in this category experienced odd and vivid dreams, a massive 85% of females who ate Stilton had some of the most bizarre dreams of the whole study – although none were described as bad experiences. Highlights included talking soft toys, lifts that move sideways, a vegetarian crocodile upset because it could not eat children, dinner party guests being traded for camels, soldiers fighting with each other with kittens instead of guns and a party in a lunatic asylum.

Elvis Costello = Worst Sound EVER

I saw Elvis Costello tonight at the Palace Theater in Louisville and it was without a doubt the shittiest sound EVER. For the first few songs the volume level was horrendous and the quality of the sound was very harsh. The keyboards were as loud as the vocals which were distorted, the guitar sounded like shit, the drums sounded like they were in the back of a cave... only the bass guitar sounded relatively OK though even it was indistinct. After a few songs they backed off on the mains but from that point on Elvis's vocals were lower than the bass player's backing vocals and his guitar was almost absent from the mix. The keyboards were too loud throughout. At more than $60 a ticket I at least expect decent sound from a concert. The worst thing about it is he played a great set that went on for over 2 1/2 hours with three encores but there were times when you couldn't even tell what song he was doing. The sound was that bad. I'm trying to find out who was doing sound now so I can make sure they're on every black list I can get them added to.

Nasty Little Pig

Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch

This guy may be the perfect emblem of the Shrub administration. He has obstructed justice, perverted our elections, and has completely subverted the mission of his office. Despite appearing to be (or maybe because of being) a closeted fag, his first action upon taking office was to refuse to investigate discrimination based on sexual preference.

Will this finally be the damning link in the chain that will lead to the impeachment of the man that installed him? For two reasons it will not: 1) this Congress put the SOB in office. 2) not even taking us to war based on lies is enough.

It is too bad there will not be a revolution because it would be nice to see people like this guy, Ashcroft, Gonzalez, Bush, and Cheney lined up against the wall. It won't happen, though. We've got too many morons in pickup trucks that hate people that can think more than 8 hours into the future that believe narrow minded fuckers like these are somehow on their side.

We are a nation of imbeciles.

Open Letter to Hillary: Gas Tax Holiday?!?

Senator Clinton, why do you feel it necessary to cater to the dumb fucks that voted for Bush? Who else would relate to someone who says things like, "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists" and “Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantages the vast majority of Americans.”(1)

You are espousing a tax break that would enrich the oil companies and do little or nothing for those of us that actually pay out of our pockets for the gas we use. Just like Bush ignored any advice from scientists you brush aside the opinions of hundreds of experts that say your tax cut will not change the price at the pump. You, Mrs. Clinton, cannot remember the last time you actually had to budget for something as cheap as (or as expensive as) a tank of gas. For someone with a personal wealth exceeding $1.5 million to say they understand how hard it is to pay for anything is such an immense lie it is sickening. To then play upon our difficulty in making ends meet by supporting a tax cut that will weaken the government and change nothing for us is just about the same as "let them eat cake." And you, an extremely wealthy and privileged white woman (married to a former President) accuse those that disagree with you of being elitist?!?

The "Tax Holiday" is one of the worst examples of pandering to the lowest common denominator that I've seen since Karl Rove first set up photo ops of Shrub clearing brush or Shrub's "tax rebate" bribery. We can barely afford to maintain our transportation infrastructure as it is, and with this never ending war in Iraq there ain't gonna be somewhere else to take the money from. So I might save a few pennies when I fill up my tank. Do you know how much more money a broken axle due to unrepaired potholes costs? No, you don't. Someone that works for you will tell someone else that works for you to get you a new car if the axle breaks. Those of us that work for a living don't have that luxury. Why can't we elect someone that works for a living?

I wasn't so sure I was actually against Hillary until this. I am now officially opposed to her. They're all politicians but she's one of those really nasty, scum sucking ones.

Difference?

Got this link from Moveon.org today: Is McCain different from Bush?