Sunday, August 31, 2008

DailyKos Embraces The Palin 'Fake Pregnancy' Rumor But Rejects The Edwards Story

Story is here.

Sorry Lee, but my mom is a veteran pediatric nurse and says that the pregnancy story that Palin has relayed to the media is "fishier than tuna" and believes that at the very least, even if it was Sarah herself who was with child, she acted negligently in taking that plane flight after her water broke.

There is good circumstantial evidence to believe that it was her daughter, not Sarah, who actually had the Down's Syndrome baby at a hospital without an NICU despite the fact that condition carries with possible severe complications. Since she had it at a smaller hospital and not in a large facility in the state capital, this made the nature of the birth easier to hush up.

Moreover, the more kids you have, the quicker the birth tends to happen after the water breaks. Yet, she gets on an eight hour plane flight, has a stopover in Seattle, then gets back on the plane, lands in Alaska and then drives 45 minutes to the hospital in Wasilla? Are you kidding me? And on that flight, the attendants notice no evidence of pregnancy or that Palin was in any medical distress. And we know how sanitary airline seats are, right? She could have ended up with a septic infection.

Now I know you have it in for Daily Kos, but you end up sounding like one of the sputtering bloviators from Powerlie. C'mon, let's have a sense of proportion here.

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Republican Convention Plan: All POW

Story is here.

There is a question to be addressed about the POW issue. This is perhaps callous, but McCain, during his pre-captivity days in the Navy, was a showboating slacker. It is the reason he was not promoted to Admiral. Indeed, McCain was perhaps not a hero at all, but just a victim.

And the provocative question out of that is, where is the demarcation between merely doing a job and heroism?

Max Cleland lost three limbs during Vietnam and everyday he he struggles mightily to get around. McCain stood idly by while his party accused Cleland of being a crypto-communist. McCain, for what he went through, at least recovered to the point where he could have a normal life.Cleland never will. So is Cleland more of a hero? What word should we use for that? Is the term being degraded by today's tendency to overpraise people in the name of promoting self esteem?

My late grandfather, who my mom barely remembers, was killed fighting for the U.S. at the Battle of the Bulge. Was he a hero or a victim? He didn't have a choice to fight or not. He was drafted.

Then you have guys who REALLY were heroes, Congressional Medal of Honor winners. The dichotomy of warfare isn't between victim and hero, but survivor and decedent. And these people chose to put everything on the line so that many more could live. McCain? Not so much. So just when should we use the word, "hero"?

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TNR: GOP Convention Will Get Racist

Story is here.

What the Republicans will do is begin running ads and sending blast faxes about whether or not Obama thinks OJ was guilty, the influence figures such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will have during his administration and they will try to peel Asians, who vote heavily Democratic, off by using statements Maxine Waters has made against Korean-Americans and Obama's sitting there and not criticizing her for it.

They will couple that with increased belligerence on immigration since they have nothing to lose since they are not going to get the Hispanic or black votes. So they will target Asian-Americans instead by playing up the bad feelings between the black and Asian communities in the U.S. and attempt to increase their working class white male voter base.

Approved and then pulled the following morning

Note: This post was intended as a warning. But I guess the moderators don't want the DNC or Obama to see what he might have to expect and prepare for. Dumb you guys. You just helped McCain in the name of a politically correct agenda by the moderator.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

2 Top Alaska Newspapers Question Palin's Fitness

Story is here.

If they're questioning her fitness now, wait until they take another look at that phony story about the birth of her last child.

I was talking to my mom, a retired nurse who had worked in a pediatric hospital for about 30 years. I told her the story about Palin's baby that the new VP nominee had given to the media. My mom scoffed at it, angrily noting that at the very least Palin ran the risk of a sepsis infection by not immediately going to hospital when her water broke before she gave that energy speech in Texas. Palin supposedly gave the speech, got back on the plane to Alaska and then had it the next morning. To add to this, the kid not only had Down's Syndrome, but was a month premature. Yet, Palin did not do the medically prudent thing.

And here's why: because her 16 year old daughter had that kid back in Alaska and Palin is trying to cover it up. Plain had pulled the 16 year old out of school five months prior for "mono." How convenient. At the very least, she risked the life of a premature baby with her behavior if you want to believe her story, making her too irresponsible to be believed about anything.

And even though the special needs child should have been put in an ICU and may have been), Palin only takes two days off. This definitely bears re-examination.

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Palin Adds Right-Wing Cruelty To GOP Ticket

Story is here.

This was a reply to a poster who is one of those anti-abortion nuts:

Actually, it appears that it wasn't Palin's water that broke to have that Down's Syndrome baby. It was her 16 year old daughter's!

http://askingwhy08.blogspot.com/2008/08/questions-about-vp-and-some-of-her.html

GOP family and moral values at work!

McCain has always been an impulsive fly by the seat of your pants guy who was protected by his daddy and his wives. So when a non-vetted Palin becomes the GOP's answer to Tom Eagleton and has to step down for lying about this and being a hypocrite it will put the coup d' grace to McCain's presidential bid. She will be gone by the end of September.

Enjoy the McCain Campaign to Nowhere!

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Sarah Palin: Former Beauty Queen, Future VP? (PHOTOS)

She is so amazing. She managed to have her most recent baby even though she never appeared to be pregnant. I wonder what is up with THAT?

http://askingwhy08.blogspot.com/2008/08/questions-about-vp-and-some-of-her.html

Uh oh!

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Palin: You're no Hillary Clinton

Story is here.

Look, Palin's talking about being part of cracking the ceiling that have kept women out of the highest office in the land is crap. Rather, it actually confirms traditional sex roles of the woman being a helper with no real power to make decisions to her male (running) mate.

Furthermore, because she has zero acquaintance with anything foreign, let along matters of policy (at least Obama had lived in Indonesia for a time as a child), when McCain inevitably appoints a male Secretary of State, she will be shut out of those discussions because she just does not have a clue. That is a huge contrast with Biden. She will be relegated to being McCain's spokesmodel at ribbon cuttings and international funerals.

Really, he may have thought, since he has a reputation for womanizing, that she would just sex up the place. Can women accept that? I don't think so.

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Sarah Palin People Interview: Ready To Be President? "Absolutely. Yup, Yup"

The story is here.

The question for me is was Crash McCain looking for a real candidate that could take over if he croaks or the political equivalent of a sideline reporter? Or does he just think she will sex up the White House (you know within these religious Republican women lurk sexual tigers)? We will go from the imperial vice presidency under Cheney to the seeing that office turned into the Republican equivalent of one of Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion grottos.

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The Worst Vice-Presidential Nominee in U.S. History

Story is here.

I have to disagree.

Spiro Agnew, a governor from Maryland who had been in office only about two years, was probably the worst vp nominee ever. He was still taking thousand dollar bribes after Nixon got elected, such was the chintzy nature of his corruption and he became the first VP ever to resign due to criminality.

After that, you have Dan Quayle, who was tapped because he didn't threaten G.H.W. Bush intellectually. There was no reason to nominate him since Indiana was a conservative state and a KKK bastion that was going to go Republican in November anyway. Until Boy George Bush was nominated for the presidency, Quayle was the stupidest man ever to become a United States executive. Marilyn Quayle would later say of Bush, "he is what they accuse my husband of being."

Outside of trying to get a state trooper removed form his job, there have been no hints of the kind of corruption by Palin that Agnew engaged in and her gubernatorial experience is about the same. She is almost certainly smarter than Quayle, who was little more than a male bimbo (known as a "himbo").

Moreover, compared to Dick Cheney, she and just about anyone else scores low on the evil meter, even if she is a religious nut. Like Quayle, though, there was no reason to nominate her since Alaska is a safe Republican district. So she scores only third in my estimation, among all time worst vp nominees.

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Friday, August 29, 2008

Sarah Palin First Impressions

Story is here.

I think she sounds shrill when she speaks louder than her normal speaking voice.

She is also no reformer, a label you will hear often from the lazy MSM:

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/08/29/did-palin-really-fight-the-bridge-to-nowhere.asp

She was for that Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it. She will try to use that veto as proof that she is a different kind of reactionary, but she was more or less forced to end the project:. Plus she used state power to try to settle a personal score.

There is no reason to be confident in her ability to lead. Reagan was popular too and his presidency was a disaster for America.

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Sarah Palin: McCain's Vice President (INFO, PHOTOS)

Actually, the driving forces for the Bridge to Nowhere were Alaska rep Don Young and senator Ted Stevens and Democratic senator Patty Murray (who remains proud of it because she got a quid pro quo for some pork for Washington state out of it).
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003450786_murray28.html

In addition, the Republican leadership opposed Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn's plan to take money out of the Bridge to Nowhere project:

"In opposing Senator Coburn"s amendment to defund the bridge, one prominent Senator told a closed-door meeting of conservatives that the plan was simply impractical. Many of the earmarks, he claimed, are counted towards a state"s equity bonus and thus are part of the state-by-state allocation formula. Defunding the bridge, he said, would direct at most $75 million to Louisiana, with the remaining $148 million returning to Alaska as money the state could use at its discretion for road projects." http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm889.cfm

Palin initially was for the Bridge to Nowhere:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/08/29/did-palin-really-fight-the-bridge-to-nowhere.aspx

But when it became a hot potato, she capitulated and vetoed it.

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Romney, Pawlenty: McCain Used Us!

Story is here.

Gee, McCain using people? Like he used his dad to get him all kinds of special treatment at the Naval Academy and in the Navy itself, how he used his first wife to shepherd him through his convalescence from his experience in Vietnam, and like he used his second wife to be his personal piggy bank to run for Congress? Like he used the media to carve out an image as a maverick before then going and kissing the hem of Jerry Falwell's and George Bush's garments when he ran for president?

John McCain a user and manipulator?

Naaahhhhh!

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Sarah Palin: McCain's Vice President

Story is here.

Great, another national executive that has misused the power of her office. The McCain campaign really is the continuation of the Bush years, with Palin being the Cheney starter kit.

The stupidity of this choice cannot be underestimated, with Pat Buchanan calling it "risky," a word that the GOP has tried to hang on Obama. In addition, if that scandal she is embroiled in back in Alaska hots up, it will take the McCain campaign off message and make it look like McCain has chosen the female equivalent of Spiro Agnew.

That makes this a blunder, especially when he could have chosen Kay Bailey Hutchison, who not only has years of experience in the Senate, but far higher name recognition and she is an attorney with some gravitas. She also knows her way around the media, having been a tv news contributor before she ran for office.

Pawlenty would have at least been inoffensive and doesn't have the baggage Palin does plus he might have been able to take Minnesota out of the Obama column.

Palin's connections to evangelicals and her misuse of her state powers will turn off independents. It also provokes them to ask questions about what kind of choices McCain will make for his cabinet , especially as Phill Gramm is still around, too.

Finally, McCain lied to the media about who his choice was going to be and that may spur some to really go after Palin's abuses in Alaska. Just really, really dumb.

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Thursday, August 28, 2008

Why Opera Rocks

Story is here.

I listen to everything from classical music to thrash metal (well, except rap and techno), but I have just never been able to grok opera. I realize what is going on technically and the dedication that is necessary to achieve a high performance level in that genre (my mom is an opera buff), but it is fingernails on a chalkboard for me.

As for Page and Perry selling themselves out, yeah, that is really sad. I personally hate American Idol and my heart just sank when Joe, who I idolized as a teenager, sat in with those frauds.

I kind of feel sorry for today's kids. They are being so ripped off. I was able to experience rock's greatest generations in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's, but outside of Marilyn Manson, nobody now even comes close to that grandeur or that kind of cultural relevance. Now thanks to Generation PTYS (Play To Your Shoes), the bands sound really mopey and dirgy (Don McLean was very prescient in a screwed up way!) and the record labels have been able to put a stranglehold again on creativity like they did in the late 1950's and the result is the sonic equivalent of Gerber's baby food. The music business now is just a bummer.

I see some really great kids playing guitar on You Tube, but they won't go anywhere because the industry won't let them. If it doesn't sound liek Avril Lavigne or Britney Spears they aren't interested.

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Iraq Signs Deal To Develop Oil Field - With China

Story is here.

Yep, the Iraq War will pay for itself---in yuan.

Since Bush has crashed the dollar, helping us to a big old helping of inflation as a result, the Iraqis decide to go for a relationship with a rising nation in China.

Make no mistake about it: Bush and the neocons have been the greatest boon to the Chinese commies since ping pong diplomacy.

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Katie Couric In Her Comfort Zone At Democratic Convention

Story is here.

Why all the slobbering over Katie Couric, HuffPo? Who cares what she's doing? She's just another vapid media talking head.

Or is this a cronyism thing because she has a friendship with Arianna?

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Note: another one of the posters called Couric a "bimbo" and that got through. But questioning of why HuffPo has appointed itself as the hagiography corps for Couric is beyond me. There has to be some kind of relationship between her and Arianna for this to occur. Arianna decries the media repeating GOP talking points and conventional wisdom, but yet, lionizes one of the worst offensders for that. Oh wait, Katie is a woman. Okay, now I understand. Put your gender ahead of your country.

Brokaw and Koppel On DNC: "Kabuki Dance... Colossal Waste Of Time And Money" (VIDEO)

Story is here.

"Waste of time and money"?

That's what I would call the airtime given to Brokaw. He has had the Seinfeld career: it was all about nothing. He has contributed about as much to journalism as my dogs.

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FOXNEWS RESPONSE TO OBAMA ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

Story is here.

Fox is kind of the mother bird of reactionaries. FrankenHume, et al, chew over the day's Republican talking points and then pukes them into the gaping jaws of their dopey audience.

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Note: This must be one of the moderators who has it in for me. Fucking prick.

McCain Gets Prickly During Time Interview (Mou Ichido)

Story is here.

This is a reply to the following post:

"McCain is the physical & mental embodiment of the failing & dying Republican Party."

Yeah, a kind of Cherry Orchard (I'm referring to the Chekov story) for latter day America. Let's hope you're right.

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McCain Gets Prickly During Time Interview (La Otra Ves)

Story is here.

Actually, McCain will put in a call to the GOP's best friend, the Reverend Moon, who will rustle up a posse of his brainwashed followers to take up all those empty seats. Don't laugh. This actually could happen given Moon's relationship with the GOP.

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McCain Adviser: There Are No Uninsured Americans

Story is here.

So what McCain is arguing is that we should use the same healthcare as illegal aliens---hospital emergency rooms---and wait until things are so bad for us healthwise that we may die before seeking care?

Again, conservatism proves itself as a leave 'em dead by the side of the road ideology.

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McCain Gets Prickly During Time Interview stumble

Story is here.

These are the same kind of empty eyed responses that Boy George was giving reporters during the 2000 election campaign. McCain is as much of an empty suit as Bush is and arguably even more dangerous. McCain wants us to legacy admit him to the presidency since he can't make his own case or stand on his own two feet.

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Keith Olbermann Caught Saying About Mike Murphy: "Let's Wrap Him Up" (VIDEO)

Story is here.

Murphy is an idiot. He only gave Bush a C for how he ran the country during the last eight years, which means that Murphy was grading on the legacy admit dumbass curve. Had a Democrat done as badly as Bush did, Murphy would be giving him an F and arguing for his prosecution for treason.

Again, there is nothing to be gained by using former campaign managers as commentators because they will always censor themselves for the next job down the road or they don't want to throw their former clients under the bus lest he be accused of being disloyal to his customers. I felt the same about James Carville, too.

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Note: Apparently, the moderator is a friend or sympathizer with Murphy. Or something. Either that or they don't like the shot I took at Deliverance Boy Carville.

MSNBC Implosion (Part Deux)

Story is here.

This is a reply to something another poster said.

Gregory is a lightweight and his show has really exposed that. He is another amplifier for conventional wisdom, kind of a Tim Russert without the big bulbous nose.

Matthews grew up admiring Barry Goldwater (his brother is a Republican) before he went to work for O'Neil (and I always wondered if Matthews might have been a Republican mole during that time) and he has always had it in for Hillary Clinton. One of his good buddies is Scooter Libby and Matthews argued for Libby's pardon.

He started out as favoring McCain, but Crash is running such a bad campaign that I think Matthews might be throwing in the towel on that one.

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Note: Once again the slobbering admiration of the Buffalo Bloviator, Tim Russert, probably torpedoed this from seeing the light of day. Either that, or the moderator hates me personally because I tend to cut right to the bone or they have a thing for dog faced boy David Gregory. Media cronyism and censorship: an evil dyad.

MSNBC Implosion

Story is here.

I think this is hilarious. From a station that stopped just short of putting Ashley Banfield in a cheerleader uniform in the opening days of the Iraq War to now the rightwingers and leftwingers warring with each other on MSNBC as it makes a transition from a minor league echo chamber for the Bush line to one that is finally willing to tell the public the truth.

And asking MSNBC's management to openly declare its sympathies? That's also really funny since Faux Nooz won't do that itself in its role as a loudspeaker for corporate fascism and its enablers on the right.

And can anybody hear the name "Wolf Blitzer" and not start laughing? You half expect him to do his shows dressed up in a German Field Marshall's uniform. In fact, that will be my new nickname for Blitzer, Field Marshall Wolf.

But getting back to MSNBC, the parent company is run by Republicans. To see them now deeply conflicted over not just the dissension going on between intellectually dishonest "I have a hard on for Hillary," Chris Matthews, Buttfaced rightwing hack Joe Scarborough and and MSNBC savior Keith Olbermann is just too delicious for words. Matthews and Scarborough wants to draw Rachel Maddow into this maelstrom of mutual loathing, but she just isn't interested and I can't blame her..

At least MSNBC is no longer boring, which it was when it had hosts such as Chuck Grodin, Tucker Carlson and Phil Donahue.

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Note: Huh? Was it the Field Marshall Wolf line? Me calling Arianna icon Phil Donahue boring (which he was)? Or Arianna showbiz friend Chuck Grodin equally tedious? I'm totally at a loss here. Any suggestions?

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Microsoft's newest browser may block ads

Story is here.

I use a script blocking widget for Firefox that keeps all the annoying DoubleClick ads that HuffPo is filled with so that I never see them. Result: pages load much faster and I don't see annoying crap dancing, spinning and beeping its way across articles I want to read. It also helps to prevent malicious adware from finding its way on to my computer.

So use Firefox and get the widget, folks. You'll be glad you did.

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Note: if you don't have Firefox you are really missing out. Download it right now and join all the cool kids.

Excuse Me, Pat Robertson, But Why Is God Sending Another Hurricane Towards New Orleans For The Start Of The GOP Convention?

Story is here.

Why is God sending a hurricane to New Orleans?

Oh, this is easy: because G.W. Bush is God. That is, just as he sent troops to Iraq while the actual terror war was in Afghanistan, he is now sending a hurricane toward New Orleans to smite all the sinning closeted homosexuals in the Republican Party that will be meeting in St. Paul.

Hey, you got a better explanation?


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Bill Clinton Democratic Convention Speech: Text

Story is here.

This is a reply to an idiotic post by some Republican troll:

Bush ignored the threat from Al Qaeda and the result was 9/11. Then he sent us to war in Iraq, taking his eye off the ball in Afghanistan and, in fact, made that country's war a predicate for disgruntled Arabs to become terrorists.

Bush kowtowed to the Chinese communists by attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing games because his daddy's Carlyle Group has interests there.

Then Clinton was saddled with an antidiluvian Republican Congress that wouldn't let him move on the global warming and AIDS questions. Moreover, not only was global warming not nearly on the radar like it is now as an issue, but Republican figures such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson regarded Aids as God's punishment for homosexuals, putting them GOP in a position of rooting for a horrible disease. That is the GOP in a nutshell.

And just for a bonus, Bush regards the fascist Russian leader Vladimir Putin as a "good man." Which just goes to show you the level of judgement he had. Heckuva job there, Boy George.

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Bill Clinton Democratic Convention Speech

Story is here.

The old boy still has it! I almost wish I had another opportunity to vote for him. He did a great job outlining what a virulent cabal of saboteurs the GOP have been without sounding bitter about it.

Rebuild America! Elect Barack Obama!

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Why John McCain May Have More Green Staying Power

Story is here.

Yeah, right. While McCain will be busy appointing Supreme Court judges that will further erode our civil rights and sever the final threads of government regulation on our runaway corporatiions, we will get greener. Yeah, an environmentally friendly version of Orwell's 1984. That would be just great.

Or not.

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America Hungry For More Pickens Boldness

Story is here.

Pickens is looking for Americans to subsidize his little energy scam to further pad his billionaire fortune. He got part of his holdings that he is now flogging as part of the answer for our energy needs through eminent domain. Pickens is a corporate welfare queen. Get a clue!

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Wind Power Needs A Push: Greening The Grid Means Changing The Grid

Story is here.

Germany has been investing heavily in solar energy with great results:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/20/MNGRAAEL4B1.DTL

I hope the U.S. follows suit. With increasing use will come (at least theoretically) lower energy prices. I personally would be willing to pay slightly higher electricity prices in order to help us extract ourselves from some of our geopolitical entanglements.

We also need a Manhattan Project for energy, but that is a topic for another day.


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The Oasis Playlist: What We're Listening To

Story is here.

Okay, stop it with the self-congratulatory celebrity/politico butt kissing. I couldn't care less about your so-called "oasis." Really, this stuff just sounds vapid.

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MacKenzie Phillips Arrested In Airport Drug Bust

Story is here.

Lock her up and throw away the key. God, I hate drug users.

"I'm McKenzie Phillips, so I can get balloons of controlled substances on to airplanes." You gotta love that celebrity arrogance.

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FreeCreditReport.com Unveils New Ad: A Rap Song (VIDEO)

Story is here.

Geez, now we have product placement for this scam (Free Credit Report.com is owned by Equifax)?

What next? Product placement for penis enlargement devices on HuffPo?

Have some class you guys. And knock off all the product placement crap anyway.

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Ted Stevens Wins Primary Despite Indictment

Story is here.

Yet more proof that the GOP is America's biggest organized crime racket. They are like the Nazis in their affinity for criminals and perverts while propounding that they are the party of morality (Hitler used to inveigh against the freewheeling culture of Munich just as how the Republicans do the same about San Francisco).

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Biden Throws Wrench In McCain's VP Choice

Story is here.

We already have military people managing the Republican wars, It's called the Joint Chiefs. We also have a Defense Department.

We don't need a general. We need somebody who can wisely manage a deteriorating country. And legacy admit boy Crash McCain ain't it.

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Ex-GOP Rep. Leaves Jail, Slams Bush "Bloodsport"

Story is here.

Oh Puhleeeease!

Ney said nothjng about his claims concerning Iran before he found himself wrapped up in a bribery investigation. So he is being disingenuous like David Duke views minorities a mite unfavorably. This is nowhere near an injustice and his equating his case and that of Don Siegelmen is ludicrously delusional.

And any media outlet that uses him as a commentator has no credibility.

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Howard Wolfson Goes To War With MSNBC

Story is here.

Before my state's caucus, I was on the fence about whether to go for Hillary, who I liked a lot at the time, or Barack Obama. I ultimately chose to caucus for Obama because of his JFK-like qualities. Hillary then went Karl Rove on Obama and rightly engendered a furious amount of criticism of herself from liberal-friendly commentators (Olbermann, Maddow, etc) not because they had it in for Hillary per se, but because her behavior was so out of bounds as to be disgusting. I will never vote for her now.

If she had bowed out gracefully, which is what she should have done, then she wouldn't have taken so many verbal brickbats from liberals in the blogosphere and the media.

Wolfson thus just can't acknowledge reality and is little different from a Lee Atwater or a Roger Ailes (the Fox head, not the liberall blogger). He is just engaging in a shoot the messenger type game (how very Republican of him) and shouldn't be taken seriously.

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Feminists Are the Majority (Answeting My Original Post)

This is a response to my reply to a story that is here.

So what you're saying is that men are incapable of thinking for themselves and just let themselves get caught up in a tide of personal convenience. Thanks. As a leftwing white male, I really appreciate that bit of condescension.

The fact of the matter is that with wages being stagnant for the better part of two decades, men are not doing that well and fewer and fewer can support a family on just one income. Yeah, that is due to GOP policies, but the fact is also that feminists have demonized men while white men are also demonized by the party's black caucus. And since the Democratic Party has essentially become a woman's party, working class white males have increasingly abandoned our party because they are feeling less and less welcome.

It is thus up to not only the party leadership, but to the feminist and ethnic coalitions in the party to initiate a rapproachment with white working class males and address their concerns, their feelings and concretely demonstrate that they are indeed welcome and cherished within the party.

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MSNBC Drama Pervades Convention Coverage: Olbermann vs. Matthews For Round 3

Story is here.

Mike Murphy is about as centrist as Bob Novak. Characterizing Murphy as a moderate says more about whoever wrote the article and his/her political leanings than anything else.

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You And Your Twenty-Something Child: How Close Is Too Close?

Story is here.

You could very well be misreading this situation.

It is only natural to ask your parents for advice when it comes to big decisions or nettlesome problems that one is having a hard time resolving by oneself. This isn't so much of a dependence issue as it is a kind of teaching interaction.

The other thing you have to realize is that you don't know who is around the daughter. Maybe she just doesn't trust the folks she has gotten to know when it comes to their judgement on certain issues.

Now I am just the opposite of the daughter described in the message. I have lived abroad and preferr to deal with everything myself and call home only infrequently. Nonetheless, if talking to her mother every now and again makes her feel better then great. Sometimes people are too guick to judge things that are none of their business. I think the daughter is acting rationally.

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Immigration Enforcement -- Raiding Children's Dreams

Story is here.

The children get victimized twice in regard to illegal immigration:

One, even though their parents don't have a pot to piss in, they have children anyway. And if there is any more sure way to keep yourself poor, it is by having kids when you can't afford it.

Two, their parents drag them across the border into a foreign country where a different language is spoken while the parents take the risk of being snared in an illegal immigration arrest. They are then left in limbo when the cops lawfully deport their parents.

This is 100% the child's parent's fault. It is not the American government's nor is it the child's.

A lot of these pro immigration activists do not live in the real world, where there are large numbers of Mexican gang mambers, clown houses that ruin the quality of life in neighborhoods (that is, where you have dozens of illegals crammed into one house or apartment), they use emergency rooms as their health care because Taco Bell doesn't offer health insurance and the schools are filled to bursting with kids who can't even read and write in theiir primary language, which diverts money from educating actual U.S. citizens.

Please, get a clue. We need to exponentially expand the scope of these roundups of illegals and crack down harder on the gangsters they have plopped into our cities. It is not the job of Americans to be a relief valve for Mexico's problems.

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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Feminists Are the Majority

Story is here.

Nothing like a little sexual parochialism, huh? The fact remains that feminists are often as sexist as men are and are too willing to tolerate unfeminist concepts such as alimony and using procreation as a financial tool to name but two.

The ne plus ultra of feminism, at least as I originally understood it, was true equality between the sexes where both men and women have equal chance at attaining their dreams while ushering in a new era of honesty. Unfortunately, what we have now is women having it both ways while men are confined to the stereotypical roles we have always had imposed on us by American culture and we also bear the overwhelming financial burden in divorce settlements.

This has resulted in men flocking to the GOP because the political correctness and this feminist hypocrisy is so imbued in the Democratic Party that males, especially whjte males, feel like they are under siege and being scammed. They are tired of the non-stop guilt trips laid on them and the often condescending way women now look at them. NOW is largely regarded as an enemy of men, as It has gone from addressing justified female grievances into an ethos of near feminist supremacy.

You have to realize that you have created problems for the progressive movement by being so navel gazing and, at times, callous. The next goal of the women's movement should be reaching mutual understanding, not perpetuating the scams we are now afflicted with.

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Why Barack Obama Reminds Me of Joan Jett

Story is here.

Hey Jackie, nice to know you are doing well. Too bad you didn't stick around the Runaways after that Japanese tour. I had a huge crush on Joan back in those days (I was 18 when the first Runaways album came out) with her platform heels, red jumpsuit and blonde Les Paul. She was like a hotter Suzi Quatro.

But at least Barack wasn't being carried out of the Wyhsky and the Rainbow back to the apartment up the hill from the Sunset Strip due to drug and alcohol problems. I'm really gratified that Joan has cleaned up and become such a success and I hope that Barack will be even more successful. We really need him to be to get this country back on its feet.

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One Millenial Speaks Out: Why I'm Enrolling in Culinary School

Story is here.

So is it really necessary to repeat the shorthand verbiage of some emptyheaded media bloviator to describe different generations?

Look, I think it's great that you are going to go to culinary school if that makes you happy. Everybody should have something they are totally into that makes their seem more interesting or fun.

However, to take any of the descriptions offered by the news carnies about your generation to heart is rather pointless. It is a bit like taking astrology seriously. Very broad generalizations that seem to fit but yet there is still always enough reality based dissonance to capsize the boatload of mumbo jumbo.

So I would offer this to all the writers at HuffPo: stop with the repetition of advertising slogans, business buzzwords, New Age meanderings and Entertainment Tonight-style fawning blather and show some actual thinking on your own. Put some spine in your brain (now THAT is an ungainly metaphor). Resist the nonsense.

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The Real Meaning and Real Talk of a Real Life '08 Bonnie and Clyde

Story is here.

Dude, you know that Bonnie and Clyde were cold blooded killers, right? You also know that they robbed banks of hard working people's money during a time when there was no FDIC to insure their deposits, right? We don't need this asinine comparison.

It also puzzles me that the best analogy for Barack and Michelle that you could come up with were a couple of parasitic sociopaths. Surely, you could have done better than that. But you were too lazy to do so. And you may have given the GOP yet more imagery it can use against our party in this election cycle.

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This guy is just a shitbrain, pure and simple. I mean, this may be the most inappropiate analogy of the entire campaign season. What a dick.

My conversation with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Story is here.

You guys are all out of our minds. All Rose did in this interview was be a kind of televisual fluffer for Ahmadinejad's propaganda purposes. He talks about nations making decisions for themselves; yet, he supports terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah that have turned Beirut, which was once known as the Paris of the Middle East, into a glorified bomb crater and Iran itself has oppressed non-Muslim minorities such as the Bahais and jailed political dissidents while its elections aren't exactly the paragon of transparency.

Rose made this megalomaniac look reasonable when, in fact, progressives in Iran are being harrassed, beaten and imprisoned for daring to go against the opressive theocracy there. Yes, the U.S. has blown it in its relations with Iran, installing the Shah of Iran, or as I call him, G.W. Bush on crack, in an illegal coup that overturned a democratically elected government lead by Mossadegh, which would eventually set the stage for the Islamic revolution.

This isn't a one or the other proposition. Both the Republicans and the current Iranian leaders are imperialists who loathe human rights. And Rose was almost grateful in being allowed to be the conduit for Iranian propaganda just as Tim Russert was always willing to echo neocon cant week after week. Actually, Rose may be closer to Larry King than Russert, he is that featherweight. This was just disgusting.

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Note: Let's see if this stays up or gets pulled later. I sliced Charlie up to a tender turn here and it still got through. So either Rose has more balls than I believed he does (he did, though, censor one of my earlier posts) or this was left up to a moderator who is willing to let even non-back slapping responses be heard.

Why Don't They Just Issue Swami Turbans at MSNBC?

Story is here.

"Swami turbans?" So is that what you say about the headwear of Sikhs, for example, when you see them during your travels? That's like calling dashikis "black power garb." Or kimono "samurai dresses." And you call yourself a progressive?

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Note: So I guess Kaplan isn't going to allow anyone to call him out on his own racism even though he is more than willing to hurl that charge at others on a whim. Hypocrite.

Little League Pitcher Banned From Playing Because He's Too Good

Story is here.

John Kruk on Baseball Tonight had it right: the adults opposed to having this kid pitch with his age group are teaching their kids to be quitters. They should be ashamed of themselves and they have now become infamous thanks to the media attention and they have traumatized a child who has done nothing wrong.

This is a joke to the point of farce. Stop coddling your kids you idiots. Teach them how to compete straight up and not runaway from difficult situations. What's next? All the students of a high school class walking out and their parents forcing it to be canceled because a particularly smart kid has set the curve too high? Give me a break!

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Immigration: Too Hot for DNC?

Story is here.

I'm a Democrat, but my party has been totally gutless on this issue because, in this case, they care more about playing to the hispanic bloc rather than what is good for this country.

However, the GOP, because it masturbates to the thought of cheap labor on the one hand and on the other is hoping that the basically conservative leanings of hispanic culture can favor them with the uttering of the right buzzwords, aren't going to campaign on solving it, either.

With the Republicans having nothing to lose as things stand right now they are going to get slaughtered in November anyway, might as well go on a jihad against illegal immigration, which would be popular not only with suburban voters, but even among some hispanics (I have worked with second and third generation hispanics who use the "w" word for illegals themselves) and some liberals. Believe me, the could tighten some of those races up in a jiffy with this. Won't happen, though.

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Joe Scarborough Vs. Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews On McCain's Gains In The Polls

Story is here.

If you want palpable hate, tune in to Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage The "hater" tag is just a schoolyard level label idiots use to try to deflect any criticism of them anyway.

The bigot charge is so ludicrous it isn't worthy of addressing. You have no argument, so you flail with emotionally charged words as an transparent tactic to try to put liberals on the defensive.

As for blaming Christians for U.S. war policy, Bush believes he is guided by God and has been backed by the Christian Right from day one. So that is fair game. It is funny that those who make fun of victimhood then turn around and claim it when people start ripping their nonsense to shreds. Moreoever, any religion, is merely an idea. It is not an ethnic group nor is it anything someone is born with. It is a voluntarily assumed.

On the Palestinians, you mean the folks who chose Yasser Arafat as their leader, the mass murdering now late leader of El Fatah? You mean the people who support blowing up tour buses as a method of debating policy with the Israelis? Talk about people you don't want to be associated with!

The Israelis do have their own bigotry, especially in their treatment of Sephardic Jews, but the Palestinians have created many of their own problems. And you know what? McCain and the GOP do not have neither the brains nor the policy wherewithal to solve that.

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Monday, August 25, 2008

China's Party, America's Win

Story is here.

Well, all these words are very nice, but do you have any hard evidence that our showing in the olympics actually improved our image abroad? Or is this just another in what will no doubt be a long line of self-congratulatory exercises in wishful thinking by writers who, like a lot of us, are mortified at what Bush has done to not just our image overseas, but to our viablity as a nation?

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Note: What a coward. One merely asks for her to cite some actual documentation and that challenge proves to be such a n affront to her that she expunges my post. Just pathetic.

Tom Brokaw: Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann Have "Gone Too Far"

Story is here.

When Brokaw comes out and excoriates the daily dog and pony shows of Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limabaugh, not to mention MSNBC's cheerleader role for the Bush Administration in the opening days of the Iraq War, then I might listen to him. Otherwise, you are just a relic from a bygone era Tommy boy. Shut up and piss off down the road.

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Decline of the "White non-Hispanic" No Big Deal

Story is here.

There is no "confusion" about hispanics by Americans. I learned about the diversity of hispanics back in grade school in the 1960's. We even had Spanish lessons on occasion in sixth grade and this was in one of the most conservative towns in arguably the most rightwing county in the United States (big John Birch Society stronghold at the time,, in fact). .

The problem Americans have is with illegal immigration and the problems it exerts on our cities, especially with regards to crime (and that area I just told you about? Hispanic gangs moved in and now it is a crime ridden dump) and what it does to our schools and the overall living environment.

The American hispanic community's reaction has done very little to try to ameliorate these problems, instead fending off police with lawsuits and by calling those of us dismayed at the effects of unfettered immigration racists even though it isn't me referring to white people as "honky," "gabacho" or "gringo."

When I moved from my hometown, I lived in a neighborhood with a few hispanic gang members in it. I got along with them personally, but since that time, the gang membership there has exploded. Thankfully, I moved again before that happened. If hispanics help law enforcement rather than hinder it so that we can sweep these scum off the street then you would buy yourselves some goodwill.

But until then, stop preaching at us.

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Note: Roger no tiene cojones.

Spike Lee: "I Don't Do Fox News"

Story is here.

And I don't patronize the movies of an anti-white and anti-Asian racist such as Spike Lee.

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Note: Lee is such a transparent white hating racist and yet HuffPo chose to protect him against my short and pithy response. So the lesson learned here is that there is no free speech on HuffPo when it comes to their holy icons of Tim Russert and Spike Lee. Or the petty egos of its too frequently blithering writers.

Every Country Gets the Media it Wants

The story is here.

The media is not giving the public what it wants in political discourse. It is instead echoing memes devised by political spokesmen. The media is not a profile in courage. It is, though, a profile in stenography, geared to recapitulating the cant of elites it favors (and since all the heads of the major networks are Republicans, it tends to skew in that party's direction).

The public doesn't consciously want a big heaping helping of fear and racism. Yet, that is what we have had thrown at us Jackson Pollack stylee during this election cycle. The idea by campaign handlers is that utilizing a Bernaysian propaganda mishmash oriented toward playing to atavistic impulses within people affords their side an advantage and the media has been all too glad to be the amplifier for that.

Furthermore, like it or not, most people still get their political information from the big four networks. Bloggers are largely reactive entities and their readership is relatively tiny. The big media creates context and the blogosphere attempts to reshape it, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Most folks use their computers to play games, exchange emails and view or listen to entertainment anyway. So when it comes to the greater U.S. public, the participation in politically oriented discussion on the web is extremely limited

As for the public getting the media it wants, I wonder what the folks in North Korea think about that. This is, at best, a deluded notion to begin with.

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Fox News Ad Ignites Chicago Cable War

Story is here.

Like Faux Nooz gives a tinker's cuss about Chicago, a Democrat stronghold.

And does any reasonable human being get upset about CNN not having a bureau dedicated to Chicago anyway? Especially when they can just rip and read news from there off the net anyway from one of the several newspapers there.

Really, what a yawn.

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Living Together, Sleeping Apart: Are Separate Bedrooms The Secret To Success?

Story is here.

Yeah, put me in the column of those who like sleeping alongside their partner. The snoring I don't mind because I have rationalized it as a demonstration of their still being alive. So there is some comfort in it for me. I also just like falling asleep holding her.

But everybody's different. Whatever works.


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Back to School Stealing

Story is here.

First of all, what business does the school have showing those kids scare films? Do the administrators (and nothing, and I mean nothing, in this world is more useless than a school administrator) and teachers get off on making their students fearful wrecks? All and sundy should be immediatly fired for this monstrosity.

As for the neighborhood you live in, those kids are a minority (and I am talking numbers, not ethnicity). This isn't a societal trend, but just a reflection of what a bunch of little terrorists gang members are. My advice to you is to move to a safer environment.

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Today's Bullies - Tomorrow's Criminals?

Story is here.

Diane, I don't have time to read all that stuff you linked to and I suspect I am not alone in that. Just bottom line it for us. What crimes are we talking about? Are we talking burglary, rape and murder here or less serious offenses such as shoplifting, drunk driving and disorderly conduct?

In addition, were these studies sex specific (i.e, focusing on males and failing to examine the fates of female bullies)?

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Car Industry Group to Public: It's Not All Our Fault, It's Yours Too

Story is here.

The U.S. auto manufacturers' main problem is that they have been building garbage the last 30 years. I don't fault them for selling what their consumers want, but they have been taking it on the chin from Japanese car manufacturers, especially Toyota and Nissan, because those companies make more reliable autos than Detroit/Mexico does. If you live in my segment of the U.S., everybody is driving Japanese cars.

Now that those big old profit center SUVs and trucks are liabilities in the $4 a gallon energy environment, they have only added to their problems by not being more forward looking. And this is the problem with corporate America: it is a creature of inertia and whines and throws tantrums like a recalcitrant four year old when it is asked to actually do something good not just for the country, but for themselves, too.

So these guys are dinosaurs and, increasingly, they hate the American worker and love Mexico anyway. Let 'em go bankrupt. Screw 'em.

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The Arabs and the Olympics

Story is here.

I think those countries are better off attempting to build economies that benefit all of their people rather than worrying about sports. It's a bit putting the cart before the horse to worry about olympic performance at the moment.

The Chinese, though, have not put aside political differences in hosting thw Beijing games. The Politburo there, as in all communist regimes, is mainly interested in propaganda value and the Chinese apparently got their money's worth here even as that country hasn't solved its vast environmental and internal economic problems and continues to put the screws to dissidents.

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Police Arrest Ninja Team That Targeted Drug Dealers

Story is here.

This is just flat pathetic. They've been spending way too much time in mama's basement watching anime.

Plus, AFAIK, carrying throwing stars and nunchuks is a felony.

Life is satire, satire is life.

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Fox News Ad Targets CNN's Heavily Democratic Audience

Story is here.

"Since Fox News introduction into the marketplace, all of the news organizations have become infotainers. Instead of just delivering the news,"

I would argue that process actually began with the introduction of the Eyewitness News concept in the early 1970's, was exacerbated by the success of Entertainment Tonight and then Fox just refined that with a right wing political sheen.

Anchors and reporters are no longer just that. Now they have to be song and dance men or comedians.

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Fox News Ad Targets CNN's Heavily Democratic Audience

Story is here.

"viewership does not have anything to do with the type of reporting happening"

Too true. Faux Nooz is still a neo-fascist operation no matter who watches it and CNN, with the exception of Jack Cafferty, has been trying to emulate it and has become Faux Nooz Lite.

It's hard for me to believe that any Democrat would watch the Murdoch GOP echo machine, but oh well. It could be that some people like watching train wrecks.

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Sunday, August 24, 2008

Al Sadr To Move Base Of Operations To Iran

Story is here.

I don't know. This has all the earmarks of Kim Il-sung's entrance into North Korea once the Soviets had cleared the field for him. It is hard to believe that Sadr would go to Iran to be a prisoner of the regime there. Either Iran is eventually gong to use Sadr as a local proxy to take over once the Americans leave or Sadr just wants to personally sit out the inevitable civil war to avoid being assassinated and then, like the Ayatollah Khomeini, waltz back in from abroad to sit atop the government of an Islamic nation once that conflict is decided.

As for Al Qaeda in Iraq, the locals in Iraq got tired of that little glorified street gang and have chased them out. There is zero evidence that the Americans had much to do with that.

All the surge did was deprive U.S. forces in Afghanistan of military resources that were needed to stave off a resurgent Taliban.

We are thus set up right now to get nothing for our blood and treasure thanks to Bush and Cheney. That is nothing to be cheerful about.

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This Week In eBay Obsessions: Sequins

Story is here.

Product placement for EBay.

Stop being so disingenuous you guys. Either that or label stuff like this what it is, advertising.

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Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Bob Costas: I Goofed On Springsteen/Phelps And I'm Sorry

Story is here.

Costas should have known that the Springsteen story was a phony because "Born in the USA" is about a Vietnam Vet coming home from war and is, unlike how a lot of people misunderstand it, not a patriotic paen. Thus dedicating it to Phelps would have been a non sequitor.

Just another instance of how fact checking in the media is now an art as bygone as the Model T.

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At Orange County's Mega-Church Even Politics are Rocking

Story is here.

I just wonder what Paul Crouch, an even bigger televangelist whose Trinity Broadcasting Network has its gloriously grotesquely designed offices and production facilities in Tustin, just down the road from Warren's racket, felt about this. His ego must have had him raging at the upstart that day.

TBN is worth a reported $700 million and none of that gets to the poor in Orange County (they can go about two minutes away to the barrios in Santa Ana if they cared). And Crouch's scam does talk in tongues and Benny Hinn, another fraud artist, is often featured on TBN.

Warren has been completely silent on how Crouch and his lantern jawed freak of a wife Jan have been misusing religion to glorify and enrich themselves. If he can't do even that then there was no reason for anyone to think he had any basis to morally cross examine McCain and Obama.

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12,000 More Troops Headed To Afghanistan

Story is here.

Obama needs to hit McCain and the GOP hard on their failed leadership in wartime. Bush and Dumbsfeld chose to fight a two front war and have exhausted our military while also totally blowing the diplomatic end. Now with Russia making threats against Poland and the U.S. militarily paralyzed to do anything concrete about it without either resorting to a draft or nukes, McCain and the neo-Bushies just are not qualified to handle these crises, especially one requiring diplomatic smarts that only democrats have shown. And Obama has to claim that mantle to help himself to the uper hand in the security debate. The GOP is just incompetent in that sphere and McCain's saber rattling has demonstrated their immaturity.

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Why Schoolgirls Wouldn't Giggle at the AP's Softball Story

This post was a reply to a comment on this story:

The poster remarked: "This is amusing -- you guys trying to trivialize the problem of media sexism by studiously avoiding the reference to the women as CHILDREN. I suggest you ask yourself honestly why you feel driven to try to obscure and redirect this conversation. Why is a simple post requesting that women athletes be afforded the same dignity as men so personally threatening to you?"

My response:

Oh shut up! Major league baseball players are often described as men playing a child's game (which is true), some players having a "child-like" enthusiasm for the sport and how they related to baseball as kids is a constant thread of conversation on MLB broadcasts. Minor league prospects are often referred to as "kids."

As for the WNBA, what the writer said, like it or not, is true. Their game has in the past lacked the degree of physicality of its male counterpart, the NBA, and a shift is now obviously occurring as women athletes become bigger, stronger and more athletic (Candace Parker for one).

This article is just more hysterical cant by an uber sensitive practicioner of political correctness.

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Toby Keith Praises Obama, Says He's A Democrat

Story is here.

This smells of a public relations move by Keith. I mean, him talking abut foreign policy is a bad joke.

Nevertheless, this McCarthyite jihad that Max Blumenthal has been waging against Keith has been unfair and further injures the credibility of anyone rightfully making racism charges.I hope this statement, as soup thin as it is, helps to quell some of the absurd invective hurled Keith's way recently.

Yeah, he's a cretin, but he is not a racist.

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Monday, August 18, 2008

Max Blumenthal's Jihad Against Toby Keith Continues

Blumenthal's blue in the face stupid ass rant is here.

Blumenthal is also a chicken shit, as he has deleted all three posts I have submitted on his spittle flecked ruminations on his antipathy for Keith and his song, Beer for My Horses.

In that post, which I submitted over the past weekend and was too tired to copy and leave here, I accused Blumenthal of giving Keith the full McCarthy (as in Joe, not Eugene) and that he was getting exercised over nothing

I also pointed out that Blumenthal is making a martyr of Keith much as how the publicity that the PMRC gave to heavy metal and rap groups helped those outfits go platinum largely after those records had bombed commercially (2Live Crew and Ice T.'s Body Count come immediately to mind) and was thus actually making progressives look like a bunch of irrational politically correct zealots with no sense of proportion.

I further added that Keith's tune reflected a weariness with crime in the U.S. among working class whites and that Democrats had better hear that message or suffer the consequences.

Just to reiterate, I think Keith is a knuckle dragging dipshit. But the stuff he has said in both this song as well as in statements after this controversy flared up are emblematic of the thinking of millions of southern whites in America and it does Democrats no good to talk down to them. Rather, progressives have to tailor their message to persuade that bloc to see our side of things rather than just engage in knee jerk condemnations.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Are Asians the New Invisible Man?

Story is here.

Hey John, do me a favor: ask Mark Ridley-Thomas and Maxine Waters their views on Asian-Americans, specifically Korean-American store owners. And how about gangs of blacks attacking Korean-American business during the Rodney King Riots, which Waters continues to call an insurrection rather than a riot that only produced death and economic damage, while accusing Korean-Americans of stealing from the black community?

I have lived in Asia and it is stuff such as the above that has given blacks a horrendous image in that region. One of my female students in Korea, who was trilingual (Korean, english and Japanese) and held a Phd, even asked me if all blacks were thugs.

When it comes to Asians and Asian-Americans, too many blacks start waxing David Duke-like. There has even been some grousing by blacks in major league baseball about Japanese players coming here and taking what they see as roster spots that rightfully belong to African-American players.

Oh, and just as an aside, the next Asian-American analyst on ESPN's main panel shows (NBA Fastbreak, Baseball Tonight, NFL Live) will be the first even as myriad African-Americans are filling that role (and most ably, I have to say; Chris Singleton has been a godsend to Baseball Tonight, for example).

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Note: I don't know if it was Ridley or the moderator of this section of the HuffPo who was judgsing the comments, but finally they allowed me to call out Maxine Waters and other black leaders on their bigotry against Asians and Asian-Americans. Kudos to whomever made that decision to allow this post to go through.

It elicited a lame reply from another reader that I should ask Waters and Ridley-Thomas about their gripes with Asians myself, but obviously I don't have the media cred to do that. They woudl hang up on me. So it is up to the media to call Waters and her ilk on their racism.

Meet Glen Campbell

Story is here.

Glen is a heck of a musician even if he isn't exactly an honorable human being (ask Mac Davis), but this effort is just a joke. At least the not very musically gifted Pat Boone's heavy metal swing album was done partly tongue in cheek.

Not all once good or great artists or even those currently in their prime can handle all songs and I just think that Glen, who was only serviceable as a singer but a monster on the six string, has bitten off more than he could chew here. This reminds me of when Linda Ronstadt, who is a ripping good country-rock vocalist, did her new wave album and it just sounded forced and shrill. It was musical dilettantism at its worst.

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OIympic Opening Ceremony Pictures (PHOTOS, VIDEO

Story is here.

While this is going on before American tv cameras, the U.S. media is ignoring Representative Dana Rohrabacher taking Communist Chinese campaign contributions:

"Onetime Taliban pal Congressman Dana Rohrabacher likes to rant about the evils of communist China, but in June, he accepted three contributions totaling $4,000 from Hang Up Moon. (That name isn"t a misprint.) Federal Election Commission records show that Moon lists himself as president of Tridus International Inc., an industrial manufacturer. Tridus, which partners with the communists, has operations in China and also lobbies the U.S. government.

For example, federal spending records reviewed by the Weekly show that in 2003, Congress gave the company $315,000 in taxpayer funds. Moon and his corporate colleague, Bong D. Lee, have returned the favor by contributing more than $28,000 in recent years to Republican Party committees and candidates.

More than a year ago, I revealed that Rohrabacher"holier-than-thou when it suits his purposes"took $500 from Philip D. Harvey, owner of a major pornography studio and a sexual-device store, as well as an advocate for prostitutes in Third World countries such as Vietnam (see "Dana and the Porn King," April 5, 2007). In 1998, I exposed the congressman for simultaneously denouncing abortion while accepting contributions from Dr. Edward Allred, one of the nation"s most prolific abortion doctors (see "The Abortionist Who Funds Pro-Life Republicans," July 3, 1998)."

http://www.ocweekly.com/news/moxley-confidential/moxley-confidential-we-dont-need-no-stinking-badges/29088/

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John Edwards Affair With Rielle Hunter: Will Admit Infidelity On ABC Tonight

Story is here.

This is a reply to a Republican poster, Tator, who said:

"Looks like another Democrat has made his wife into a "Hollaback Girl" such a class act."

I wrote:

And what of Bob Livingston? David Vitter? Larry Craig? Ken Calvert (arrested while getting a hummer from a street prostitute), and Newt Gingrich? Heck, Dwight Eisenhower?

Or rumored secret gays David Dreier and John Kasich? For that matter, Charlie Crist, who is about to engage in a sham marriage if that rumor is correct?

G.H.W. Bush was also rumored to be having an affair with White House employee Jennifer Fitzgerald. When asked about it, Bush only replied, "I don't answer sleaze questions." Note that the response is not a denial.

The Enquirer has also claimed in the past that G.W. Bush was having an affair with Condi Rice and that Laura had spent nights at a hotel away from the White House in anger over that affair as well as his falling off the wagon? To be fair, if you are hots on to get Edwards, then you need to bring heavier scrutiny to the Bush-Rice affair, no?

Or are Republicans willing to sell virtue down the river yet again in the name of power? If you push the virtue button dude, you have to be consistent about it.

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Thursday, August 7, 2008

Why Are U.S. Taxpayers Funding Reconstruction While Iraq Reaps Oil Profits?

Story is here.

Hey Maxine, tell us why you hate Korean-American store owners so much? And why do you continue to call the Rodney King riots an "insurrection" rather than an orgy of violence and death, which is what they were?

You have zero moral authority on anything, you Damian Williams (he's the guy who caved in Reginald Denny's head) supporting anti-white demagogue!

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Taxi Cab Confessions: Why Beijing Drivers Don't Speak English

Story is here.

God, leave the poor drivers alone. When I was living in Korea and Japan, I used taxis a lot and always spoke to the cab drivers in their language (I speak and read Japanese, but my Korean is basically tourist survival level, though I can read Hangul). They have a hard enough time navigating their streets without some foreigner telling them what language to speak.

Moreover, if you speak a second language, it can take a fair amount of your brainpower to use and do you really want a driver translating something in his head from Mandarin to english while he is at the wheel? All that does is increase the distractions he has to deal with.

One other thing: in Korea, or at least according to my former students there, being a taxi driver is thought as well of by general society as being a janitor or retail clerk here in the U.S. In other words, it is held in low esteem, the province of folks not smart or able enough to work for big companies. It may be that way in China, I don't know. So all you do by asking them to speak english is further make them feel bad about themselves by pointing out something else they can't do.


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Like Music and Oil. Perfect Together?

Story is here.

Musicians use lots and lots of energy. All those 100 watt Marshall, Laney, Fender and Mesa stacks in addition to PA systems, lighting rigs, lasers and tour buses sucking lots of juice and gas, even as the artists spout about being kind to the environment they are contributing to energy consumption.

Therefore, how about the musician community gets together with musical and sound equipment manufacturers as well as club and arena owners to devise ways and technologies to trim their use of energy without degrading sound and performance quality? That would give them more moral authority on this issue. Walk it like you talk it.

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Bette Midler: MTV Wrecks Singers

Story is here.

If it wasn't for the Eventide Harmonizer Paula Abdul wouldn't even have had a singing career. That she is now part of a program that cheapens the value of being a mature, accomplished musician is perhaps fitting.

Music these days is produced like something you buy from Taco Bell. It is geared to being inoffensive rather than having any distinctive taste. It is like possessing an actual personality is a fault now. And the record industry wonders why so many people hate it. Well, here is one amid about a hundred.

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Sponsoring the Olympics Is Bad for Business

Story is here.

All these companies are going to spend up the wazoo to advertise during the olympics and I will never see one of their spots since, for the first time in my life, I am boycotting the games. I hope all Huffington Post readers join me in giving this celebration of environmental degradation, human rights abuses and political oppression a miss.

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Leaked McCain Memo: Paint Obama As A "Job Killing Machine"

Story is here.

Hey, if anyone knows how to kill jobs, it's Republicans. What party affiliation do all those CEO's who lay off thousands of workers at a time claim? Yep, it's the yellow elephant label.

And let us not forget what they said about the Clinton Deficit Reduction Package: "It will lead to the mother of all recessions," said then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. But all it resulted in was budget surpluses and we had the greatest economic expansion in American history during Bill's administration. Where I lived at the time, unemployment was down to 2%.

Meanwhile, Hoover ignited a depression, we had stagflation under Nixon and Ford, we had a recession under Bush the Elder and now we have one under junior. Republican administrations are Auschwitz for the working man.

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Note: There were 43 pages of responses to this article, so I am going to forego checking on it. I would think it got through.

Hamdan Case a Joke

Story is here.

Leave it to the boobs at the Bush Administration to make people feel sorry for Osama Bin Laden's driver.

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Bush & Habbush

Story is here.

Unfortunately, you speak the truth darthdarcy. The MSM is too busy gearing up for the John Edwards story and dealing with the Heath Ledger-Olsen sister contretempts that what may be the signal story of the entire Iraq debacle will be allowed to fade away by the glorified stenographers that call themselves reporters.

The MSM has a chance to redeem themselves for allowing themselves to be used as Bush's echo chamber the last eight years by really digging on this story. But they obviously aren't going to take it.

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Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Bush To Speak Out Against China Policies On Day He Arrives For Olympics

Story is here.

So on the morning after it was revealed that the predicate for the war in Iraq, a historical American calamity, was an administration concocted forgery that should result in both Bush and Cheney going from the White House to the Big House, Huffington Post runs a screamer on its front page about Bush's PROMISE (which is worthless) to criticize the Chinese on human rights when he arrives in China for the olympic games. The White House press office couldn't have hoped for anything better.

The Huffington Post has thus made the forgery a one day story and will join the long list of myopic media organizations who didn't see how historically important the revelation about the forgery was.

If HuffPo had any real guts and foresight, they would keep the forgery story roiling as wingunt talk radio did about the Sudan bombing story or the Lewinsky nonsense during the Clinton years. But I guess that's too much to ask.

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Note: Apparently better to pretty much act as another p.r. outlet for a White House stunt rather than devote that space to a historically more important story. Hey, I see this tree, but where is the forest?

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Are "Lad Mags" To Blame For Absent Fathers And Sexism?

Story is here.

A conservative talking about sexism? That's a laugh! Aren't these the same types who endorse the Christian viewpoint of a woman submitting to her husband? Aren't they the same folks who endorse tens of millions in salary and golden parachutes for corporate CEOs while average workers have to struggle on stagnant wages? Conservatives talk about family values, but they just don't want to make it possible for mothers to stay at home with their children by paying wages you can actually support a family on.

Please, This is just a song and dance for these phony conservative groups to raise money with. They have no intention of changing things to actually make things more amiable for families to grow and prosper.

They are also demonizing men, too, propounding that we are too stupid to understand that men's magazines are entertainment and little more. Adultery, polygamy, domestic violence and rape came along thousands of years before Maxim.

Really, his words are just blather and nothing more.

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China Arrests, Beats Two Foreign Journalists In Crackdown

Story is here.

(This is a reply to a couple of posters who were saying that Bush had no moral legitimacy to be criticiaing the Chinese).

Have you heard of something called an ad hominem attack? That is when you try to dodge the point of a debate by making the messenger the issue rather than the substance of what they're saying.

Bush isn't the only one calling China out (though he has been doing so in a mealymouthed way). I have been too and will boycott watching the olympics for the first time in my life. That some people attempt to trivialize the depredations of a brutal regime by attempting to call someone else out for their peccadilloes isn't just delusional, but also lends more credibility to the wrongdoing of nations such as China.

And as bad as Bush has been, and I hate his guts like nobody's business, he is a pussycat compared to the barbarians in the Chinese Politburo.

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Lynching Advocate Toby Keith: Obama "Talks, Acts, And Carries Himself As A Caucasian"

Story is here.

Keith's purported remark to Beck was stupid, but I don't think that he intended anything racist in it. The fact of the matter is, and keep in mind I am a card carrying ACLU loving liberal, that blacks do often make distinctions about which of their number is "really black" and who "acts white." In some inner city circles, really stupid ones, getting a college education is seen as "trying to act white." There is even debate within the black community as to the desirability of light skinned blacks vs. darker hued folks.

So these anti-Keith diatribes by Blumenthal, which are reminding me of the whining Heather Mills engaged in during her divorce proceedings with Paul McCartney, are getting to the point of a neurotic obsession.

Geez, I can't believe that I am defending a cretin like Keith. But Blumenthal is just being totally unfair here because he is apparently pc to the point ot being delusional.

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Note: Blumenthal is on a jihad against Keith just as blind as that of Islamic fundamentalists against the USA and the HuffPo moderators are apparently saying that is okay with them. The truth? They can't handle the truth!

Why Americans Hate Journalism, Part 62

Story is here.

If they had any freaking sense, this news about the forged letter would be plastered all over the tv and newspapers with screaming headlines, but they are so in the tank for the Republicans and are so afraid of being called out for their own complicity for the last eight years that it isn't going to happen unless somebody forces them to talk about it.

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Paris Hilton Responds To John McCain's Celebrity Ad (VIDEO) stumble digg reddit

Story is here.

Leave it to Crash McCain to make a daffy party girl look credible.

That video was very funny and right on the mark.

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Note: Apparently, the individual who was moderating this dialog is one of the snippy little pantywaists who has a personal vendetta against me (probably formy Tim Russert remarks) and will delete anything I submit. Love that small minded personnel Arianna!

Iraq Government Has $79 Billion in Unspent Cash

Story is here.

Just yet another way in which this whole Iraq adventure has been a big scam. And how Republicans have a habit of losing the peace (i.e., both Gulf Wars).

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Rolling With McCain In South Dakota

Story is here.

I saw some of McCain's remarks at Sturgis on Keith Olbermann's show and the guy is just another Floyd R. Turbo (remember the Johnny Carson character?) just like Bush was. What a joke that anyone wants to vote for this clown.

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Monday, August 4, 2008

Nudity On The Web Not Easy Enough, Says Mark Cuban

The story is here.

Americans can't handle adult discussions of sexuality. If they could, groups such as the American Family Association and the Media Research Center wouldn't exist. That's because those groups like their sex the old fashioned way: dirty, dirty dirty!

Oh, and from whores.

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Cal Chamberlain, R.I.P.

Story is here.

I'm glad the guy had the integrity to tell CNN where to go, but I would have liked to read specifics on how he and CNN came to a parting of the ways. I'm sure he had some stories that would prove what a clown show CNN---Fox Lite---has become.

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Robert Novak To Retire After "Dire" Prognosis

Story is here.

May his agony be prolonged and his death assured. This guy was a scumbag and only cared about himself, not his country nor humanity as a whole. I dance on your grave Novak, you blackhearted dick!

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Note: The only posts about Novak's tumor that were shown were ones that sent this coldhearted asshole good wishes. Now what I want to know is, would they have done the same thing for Joseph Goebbels if he was ill? "Yeah, I disagree with his calling for gassing the Jews, but he was one of the best at what he did." I mean are we in cloud cuckoo land here?

Yes! Novak was strongly against any national healthcare plan even though the lack of one is bakrupting families and making the elderly choose between taking their medicine or eating. This guy deserves compassion? Are you kidding me?

Schwarzenegger Sinks to New Low

Story is here.

Republicans and deficits go together like wet and water. The first deficits in California in my lifetime (and I was born in the 1950's) were under Pete Wilson, who jacked up state university tuition fees as much as he could, essentially putting the burden for his fiscal mismanagement of the state budge on the backs of college students.

The "caveman caucus," that is, Republican Assembly and Senate members from Orange County, see Schwarzenegger as a liberal and he has zero fiscal credibility with them.

For the above reason alone, voters in California need to realize Arnold is little more than a glorified placeholder and should be tossed out.

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A Day in the Life of Covering Manny Ramirez

Story is here.

Sports is kind of the Nero division of journalism. While the country is falling down around them, newspaper, radio and tv outlets spare no effort in covering a goofy athlete as if he just descended from Olympus.

Life is satire, satire is life.

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Did Google Kill Journalism?

Story is here.

Actually, 60 minutes did not kill journalism. If anything, it was a commercial for the journalism industry. It is one reason why there is so much criticism in the blogosphere these days about how the press has largely rolled over for Bush and the Republicans. Tim Russert is rather pale compared to Mike Wallace.

Moreover, newspaper and media owners have always been concerned with profit. If that wasn't the case, San Francisco would actually have a decent newspaper rather than the Chronicle, which is a joke, and the L.A. Herald Examiner and the myriad old New York papers such as The World would still be in business.

What has really killed journalism, especially on the local level, has been Eyewitness News. Instead of gritty reporters acting in the public interest, they were now positioned as your lovable "friends," with inane joking banter between stories that actually trivialized journalism rather than made it more palatable. Weather reports became song and dance routines. It was also used to sell advertising masquerading as news stories, something Disney has only made worse since it bought ABC.

This was also around the time when news divisions were beginning to be folded into the entertainment divisions. Now news is positioned as just another form of entertainment, not as public service to the nation.


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Sunday, August 3, 2008

Hotel Room Hell: Sense of Humor Required!

Story is here.

'm not surprised. Most hotels are franchised and the Avenue was a Raddisson before it apparently went independent. So either they lost their franchise due to management disagreements with Raddisson or they weren't keeping quality control up to a level Raddisson found to be adequate in representing its brand. When a hotel changes hands in this manner, it is a bad sign. It would be something else if it went to another large chain such as Holiday Inn, etc, but it didn't.

So without Raddisson inspecting them every few months, there was no incentive to maintain the hotel's infrastructure like there would be with a famous badge on it. Moreover, the owners, if their property is in a high traffic area with stellar occupancy rates (like right near convention centers), can more or less freely kiss off a minority of unhappy customers because, to some degree, they will benefit by a captive clientele that wants convenience of location over just about anything else.

Trip Advisor highlighted some problems at this property, but the reviews were otherwise pretty decent overall. So they are unlikely to suffer any damage economically due to your and some of the other complaints. I do recommend, though, that you contact AAA and send in a formal complaint., Enough complaints can result in a downgrade of their rating in the AAA books, which is well used by tourists (note about that: I consider the AAA book largely useless in determining hotel quality, though).

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Hands Off My Laptop, iPod, Cellphone, Pager, Beeper, Flash Drive, Pocket Litter, First Born (OK, Not My First Born)

Story is here.

Why would anyone want to visit the U.S.? Customs officers feel they can do anything they want now under the authoritarian Bush regime and are always surly to both tourist and American citizen alike while asking often invasive questions that are none of their god damned business.

And yeah, I do recognize they have a hard job. But that is no excuse for being a jerk just because you can.

The customs people at SEA-TAC suck in particular.

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Kathy Hilton: McCain's Celebrity Ad: Frivolous, A Waste Of Money, A Waste Of Time

Story is here.

Kathy Hilton calling John McCain "frivolous" is hilarious. If there is somebody who knows what that word means, it is Kathy. She gave birth to the exemplar of it.

Knowing how Republicans operate, Hilton Hotels can now expect wide scale immigration raids to arrest their immigrant busboys, cooks and housekeepers.

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US Hospitals Privately Deporting Immigrants

Story is here.

This is one of those Kafkaesque results of the United States not having a coherent immigration policy. All across the country, hospitals are being drained dry by illegal aliens using hospital emergency rooms for their health care. My retired nurse mom, who is, like me, a liberal, has long lamented the effects of unfettered immigration on hospitals, which run on real money, not merely on airy fairy ideology and good intentions. She has also been hit twice by unlicensed illegal alien drivers.

The hospital featured in this article did the best it could in caring for Mr. Jimeniz, who is regrettably in his own circle of hell right now. But you also can't have private entities making immigration decisions and this was more or less a usurpation of a governmental function by the hospital and they need to suffer some kind of legal consequence because of it.

By the same token, that hospital is also a victim of the Republican fetish for cheap labor and Democratic Party political correctness. So it was in a Twilight Zone of its own here.

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Toby Keith's Pro-Lynching Publicity Tour Hits Colbert, CBS and More

Story is here.

My first run at Blumenthal's jihad against Toby Keith, who, again, I generally regard as a simple minded cretin, was censored, but I will try again: Keith isn't nostalgic for hanging blacks or for segregation, etc. Rather, like a lot of Americans, including even progressives such as myself, he is frustrated by the fact that we keep recycling thugs back into our society, where they loose their depredations time and again on regular folks who just want to live in peace. The U.S. justice system moves slowly and is often too lenient. That guys like Keith want to get these crumbums permanently out of society is not a surprise. I do too.

Democrats need to listen to this. This is what, for better or worse, America thinks. We need a comprehensive plan to clean our cities of gangs, for example, that only seem to be growing more powerful and threatening as time passes. That neither Obama nor McCain is talking about that issue fuels attitudes like the one you see in Keith's song. If you want to prevent that sort of viewpoint from being aired, then do something about the actual problem.

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Note: this was the second time I took a run at Blumenthal's outright politically correct character assassination of Keith and the second time he censored me. The nonsense assertions by Blumenthal is another example of where ideology deteriorates into idiocy.

I've Heard Enough Singing From the NetRoots

Story is here.

The problem with this post is that she doesn't tell us why Stranahan was banned. It could be that there was good reason to do so, but we can't tell either way since she gives no details about this.

As far as "listening" goes, the Daily Kos has a point of view and if you don't like it, don't read it. I was horrified on the capitulation in the FISA matter and I am also dismayed about Obama doing a soft shoe on the oil drilling issue. That doesn't make me a netroots zealot (and if you read enough of my posts, you will see there are a few things I part ways with the liberal blogosphere on), but just someone who believes that America isn't heading in the right direction with these latest developments.

That people such as myself don't agree with you, well, too bad. Deal with it.

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Note: fucking hypocrite.