some junk we like
Archive for the ‘politics’ Category.
I wish I had a dynamic text replacement filter for my web browser. I’d call it “truth goggles”. Any time the word “liberal” came up, it would replace it with “speedbump” or “enemy”. That way when you read what our government says, it would make more sense.
Holy fucking hell, our bill came for our subscription to america: the tragic comedy. How do I cancel this? Oh, I can’t. Bummer. Well, don’t spend it all on one oil rig, jackass.
Paul Wolfowitz, New American Century signator Paul Wolfowitz? In charge of the World Bank? What could possibly go wrong??
Is this some kind of episode of Alias or something? As if we’re supposed to believe that they’re our government, but they’re actually some kind of alliance hellbent on putting evil people in every position of power. Wake me up, please, someone, tell me this is a bad dream.
Bush also criticizes then-Vice President Al Gore for admitting marijuana use and explains why he would not do the same.
“I wouldn’t answer the marijuana questions,” he said, according to the Times. “You know why? Because I don’t want some little kid doing what I tried.”
Despite running beautifully designed graphic tees all the time, we still have a big crush on plain black tees with a clever quip across the front.MadJoe’s ‘I Have Political Enemies’ is a perfect example of one of those kinds of shirts. It pretty much says everything it needs to in four words and gets out of your way. Also, it’s nice and nonpartisan. So it works as much for Markos Moulitsas Zúniga as it does for Mike Drudge. Although after looking at the rest of the shirts on MadJoe’s site, I bet a douchebag like Drudge would get his panties in a wad…
$21.00 | Credit | URL
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(Via Preshrunk.)
top notch
I use that term loosely… when the “president” talked about things off the known agenda, the radio commentator said “This is one of the surprise initiatives”… and i dawned on me. “Surprise Initiative” is another way to say “I have no real intention of seeing this through, but me talking about it will make it harder for you to say bad things about me, even though Congress probably won’t do what I’m talking about. Whatever.” And I also love how basically all the surprise initiatives are going to cost billions of dollars, too. Where is that money going to come from? Oh, the permanent tax cuts, right! It also cracks me up when in the same sentence I hear “we have no right to force a method of government on another country” and “so that’s why democracy is right for the middle east”. Same sentence!
“hey, don’t let me tell you what to do, but you have to do it this way”?
Am I the only one who sees the hypocrisy here?? If this is the “new american century”, why is there so much emphasis being placed on the middle east? Oh, I get it, because that’s where our interest are. I better go read up on the statement of principles.
PS… syria, iran, sounds like you’re next. Sorry.
PPS. I didn’t mention this earlier when the figure came out, but I laughed loudly when the survey numbers came out 50-50 on whether Bush is a uniter or divider. It sort of answers itself: divider. Duh.
Eyes on the Screen: Direct action to save Eyes on the Prize: “Cory Doctorow:
Eyes on the Prize is a seminal documentary about the US civil rights movement, a classic that is shown and re-shown every year around this time, for Black History Month. The problem (see earlier BB post) is that the archival footage in Eyes on the Prize was only cleared for the initial production, and the cost of clearing the copyrights again is prohibitive. It seems, then, that this documentary is doomed to vanish, once the existing VHS copies wear out.Downhill Battle has decided to stage some direct action around this. They’re running a site called Eyes on the Screen, which is distributing copies of Eyes on the Prize via Bittorrent, and they’re organizing a national network of screenings on February 8th — have your friends over to watch your downloaded copy of the documentary.
At 8pm on February 8th we will celebrate the struggle and triumph of the civil rights movement with screenings of Eyes on the Prize Part 1: Awakenings. Eyes on the Prize is the most renowned civil rights documentary of all time; for many people, it is how they first learned about the Civil Rights Movement (more about the film). But this film has not been available on video or television for the past 10 years simply because of expired copyright licenses. We cannot allow copyright red tape to keep this film from the public any longer. So today we are making digital versions of the film available for download. Join us in building a new mass audience for this film: organize or attend a screening in your city, town, school or home on February 8th.
This could be a seminal moment in technology liberty. It’s a brilliant campaign on Downhill Battle’s part. I hope you’ll participate.
Link“
(Via Boing Boing.)
Amplifying… Hey, jono… check out a great use for a projector: jolly roger community screenings of historical documentaries… Nice! I’m just wondering where I can get power out at the park near my house.
Bush broke?
One thing we tend to take for granted, if nothing else, is that the 43rd president is a wealthy man. After all, that’s the reward of a lifetime’s work running companies into the ground and then handing them off to your dad’s cronies. But if you look at his most recent federal financial disclosure form from May 2004, you’ll see that a good percentage of President Bush’s personal wealth is tied up in (horribile dictu!) US Treasury notes, i.e., a worthless stack of paper/IOUs.
How ole’ 43 let himself get into such a financial crisis it’s hard to say. But perhaps it explains some of the belligerence?
[Special Thanks to TPM reader AP for the tip.]
[ed.note: Unfortunately, federal financial disclosure forms only includes ranges of value for a given asset, not the exact dollar amount. But perhaps some enterprising blogger -- or even, reporter -- should print out the form, get out the calculator and come up with a rough figure for how much of Mr. Bush's wealth is tied up in this funny money.]
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(Via Talking Points Memo.)
amplifying…
—–Original Message—–
From: Rick Ciampa [mailto:rick.ciampa@verizon.net]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 9:52 AM
To: James Longton
Subject: the rabbit stratagie
The CIA, the FBI and the LA Police Dept. are each asked to prove their
capability of apprehending terrorists.
President Bush releases a white rabbit into a forest and tells each agency
to catch it.
The CIA goes first. It sends animal informants into the forest. They
question all plant and material witnesses. After three months of intensive
investigations the CIA concludes rabbits do not exist.
The FBI goes in next. After two weeks with no leads it bombs the
forest, killing everything, including the rabbit. It makes no apologies; the
rabbit had it coming, it insists.
The LAPD go in. They come out after just two hours, with a badly beaten
bear. The bear is sobbing, “OK, OK, I’m a rabbit, I’m a rabbit!”
We just got Dish Network, and with it a bunch of new educational channels. We got the DVR version of the receiver, and I’d not yet spent time to learn how it works. I saw “Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent” in the dish guide at a time about an hour after we’d have left for thanksgiving dinner, so I figured I’d see if I could just move the cursor over to that block and hit record. Yeeep 
so I watched it this morning. Wow. I can’t even begin to redigest it for a simple blog entry. key points I took away from it were:
if you can find it, rent it, or in a striking display of irony, buy it.
So much for states-rights and…: “
So much for states-rights and federalism.
From the Post: “Also included in [i.e., slipped in furtively into] the final [omnibus spending] bill was a major provision barring states from enforcing laws that require health care providers, hospitals, HMOs or insurers to pay for, provide or give referrals for abortion.”
California, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York — none of them can make their own reproductive rights policy.
More here from Ms. Magazine.
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(Via Talking Points Memo.)
There they go. You civil liberties shipped off to fight the war on terism. I suspect they’ll not be returning.
my latest letter to Mike Honda:
My question this time is to ask you what you think it is going to take to eliminate the “winner take all” rule for the electoral college nationwide? Colorado Prop 36 failed to pass, but I think we’re seeing the electoral college system fail consistently now. I’ve heard a lot of debate about how Colorado was leary to pass this because of a usurpation of power for the state as a whole. Many people think the only way to do this is to abolish the winner take all rule for all states all at once. I think this is a necessary step to restore the faith in the system to the disenfranchised voters like myself. I realize what it means for the power of california’s influence, but right now I’m not feelin’ any love from _any_ presidential candidate, and if all states are equally important, then all candidates have reason to visit all states… thus somewhat returning a more reasonably representative form of democracy to all of the nation’s citizens.
Thursday, November 4, 2004
My Modest Proposal: The U.S.A.R.?
My friend wrote this. It’s very funny, mainly because it’s true.
MY MODEST PROPOSAL: THE U.S.A.R.?
By C. B. Shapiro?I feel bad for the Red States.?
Yes, they won the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and most of the state houses.? But they still can’t have the country they really want because the last few Blue States won’t roll over.? So I am making a simple proposal:
Secession.? Divorce.? Splitsville.
Personally, I think we made a huge mistake not letting them go when we had the chance back in 1862.? Well, no time like the present to correct an old mistake.
Then, they would finally be free to have the kind of society they’ve always wanted; church and state can be fused so they build the kind of theocracy they’ve dreamt of, with Jesus at the helm.? Then the new USAR (United States of America Red) can ban books, repeal civil rights, persecute gays and have all the wars they like. They want prayer in schools??? More power to them.? They can ban abortion and post the Ten Commandments in every federal building in their country.? Bring back slavery, if they want.? We’ll be free to live with our like-minded countrymen who believe in science, modernism, tolerance, religion as a personal choice, and truly want limited government intrusion in our personal lives.? Why should each side be driven mad by the other any more, decade after decade?
Call the Culture War a tie and everyone go home.
Of course, we in the U.S.A.B. get the Gross Domestic Product, businesses and universities of California, New York, Massachussetts — basically the whole Northeast and Northwest (plus Illinois and Michigan if they want to come along).? They get Wal-Mart and Duke and most of the Nascar tracks.? But they can feel free to import movies, TV shows, financial services, and defense technology.? We’ll import country music, bibles and Confederate flags.
The two countries will by necessity have open immigration policy: anyone who feels they are living in the wrong country can just move across the border, no questions asked.
Ultimately, why should I have to convince my fellow countrymen that Darwin may have had a point and that the word ?liberal? is not equivalent to ?godless communist??? And why should they be forced to live in a country with morally corrupt non-believers?? I’ll stay in the messy, free-thinking U.S.A.B.? And to the U.S.A.R. I say?
God bless you all, and see you at the U.N
posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:26:57 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
I’ve been talking about this too. Also, i love the “United States of Canada / Jesusland” graphic circulating with lightning speed around the “Interwebs”, too. The other way to go is to take California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii and call it “Pacifica”.
ah, see.. Others are talking about it, too.
Hey, guess what — the top level domain of “.pc” does not appear to me to be in use.
For those of you who feel extraordinarily alienated, continue to vote with your dollars. The one power you have left is economic.
Reward like minded business owners to promote them to higher standing in the community. Public records show contributions to parties, and even brief conversations with business owners will ferret out an affiliation. Don’t bait the questions you ask to lead the response in any direction. Let the proprietor tell you without biasing their answer for them.
It’s your money, and you’re free to spend it however you please. I urge you to give careful consideration to this idea. Pass it along to your like minded friends and like minded family. Your economic power is real, and with more people putting it to use, it’s a useful tool. A continuance of economic reward to the adversary of our political beliefs only helps them persist in their quest to dominate the legal, cultural, and political landscape.
You still have power, and that’s in how you spend your money on the things you need to live life. Vote with your dollars. Reward like minded business owners.
