three years and 2000 deaths late

The Bush administration has finally announced some sort of exit strategy. Okay, well that's what they'd like it to be...but there are no dates, no real objectives, and no real anything at all. I like this:

"Victory in Iraq is a Vital U.S. Interest," the document says. "Iraq is the central front in the global war on terror. Failure in Iraq will embolden terrorists and expand their reach; success in Iraq will deal them a decisive and crippling blow."

"In the meantime," it should continue (but of course doesn't), "The Iraqi front gives the terrorists® a training ground and rallying cry akin to Soviet Afghanistan in the 1980's, ensuring propagation of trained terrorists for decades to come!" (The exclamation point being the spice that most of these policy reports miss...well, that and the honesty)

one of the good ones

At least this Republican official admits to being corrupt...the rest should learn from him.

for those who think saddam is sexy

Now you can get into his pants, or at least buy them.

why i'm thankful for george dubya

Living life, even riding the bus, is becoming more and more like a moive set in 1930's Germany every day...and living a movie-like life can be hella entertaining. Case in point:

One morning in late September 2005, Deb was riding the public bus to work. She was minding her own business, reading a book and planning for work, when a security guard got on this public bus and demanded that every passenger show their ID. Deb, having done nothing wrong, declined. The guard called in federal cops, and she was arrested and charged with federal criminal misdemeanors after refusing to show ID on demand.

Yes, the woman was arrested for not showing her "papers" when asked for them by a police officer. She wasn't crossing a border, there was absolutely no suspicion of her committing a crime, the cop was just checking papers. You can read more here.

juliana wetmore, a year later

I first heard of little Juliana's story a year ago and wrote a couple of entries about her (and have updated this one a couple of times), asking for others to consider donating some money to a fund that the family had set up. Well, from everything I've read, it seems that she's doing very well -- aside from an eye problem earlier this month that sounds to be getting better.

I don't have the time or connections to keep up on all the latest news -- at least not to any extent that my google traffic shows appetite for -- but I do have a couple of links that are updated very regularly with Juliana's condition. You may want to check them out:

• Caring Bridge is updated rather regularly by the Wetmore family itself
and...

• Juliana Wetmore Weekly -- a site run by one of Juliana's nurses


• Offline, the family can be contacted at P.O. Box 65852 Orange Park, FL 32065


• Also, this article links to all other articles reporter by First Coast News.

stupid things that get you on the list, part 2

There are people on the sex offenders list for pissing in public, having sex in public places, having sex with 17-year-old future wives, streaking, and other assorted offences that I don't care whether I know my neighbors have committed or not. In South Dakota you can add having sex with inanimate objects.

it's all about trust

It's been the buzz on the net for quite awhile and finally hit the presses last week -- Sony's copyright protection software. Basically, in order to prevent customers from making 10 copies of a new CD and hand them off to friends, they've made it difficult to play the CDs on computers -- which means making it hard to play on iPods or other mp3 players. Sony isn't the only label using them either -- EMI does too, and at least a few others are planning on it. And the whole thing is costing the labels sales.

As well as it should.

If a corporation, or any company, is going to treat us all as criminals, why should we trust them? Why should we give them our money? Why should we treat them as anything less than criminals themselves? We don't owe them anything -- we don't have to buy what they sell.

The McDonald's around the corner started going nuts with examining twenty-dollar bills a couple months ago. They hold them up to the lights, obviously checking for all the security measures, making a scene of it almost...but I have to wonder (and would ask if I felt that the counter person would "get it") why I should trust the food if they can't trust my money. I mean, I'm putting this shit in my body, that takes some trust...why can't they show me the same? Why do they have to assume my criminality?

The fact is that people don't care -- "It's just a part of business" they say. It doesn't need to. We have power my friends. If they -- whether "they" be record labels or fast food joints -- aren't going to show us a little trust we can view them with a suspicious eye and take our money (and interests) elsewhere. There are plenty of businesses, large and small, that are willing to show us all a little trust and we should all be supporting them. I'm going to be.

thank you senator hagel

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) strongly criticized yesterday the White House's new line of attack against critics of its Iraq policy, saying that "the Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them."

-- The Washington Post

It's good to hear that at least some Republicans have gotten off the sieg heil float and joined the rest of us in the good ol United States of America. It doesn't mean, though, that I'm not going to continue my boycott of voting for any Republicans until Herr Bush is out of office.

On a side note, it seems that the Dems aren't kissing corporate lobbyist butt as much as they used to and Kos wonders why that's a bad thing.

...yeah, maybe this country isn't going the pooper after all.

organized sports, YEAH!!!

Like, sometimes when my favorite sports team wins, I castrate myself.

...you know, I have never understood sports team fanaticism -- to get all worked about about a bunch of people who you don't know doing something you, yourself, don't have the balls to do.

Sorry, I couldn't resist the opportunity there.

you might be a terrorist...

The Bush adminstration has added another activity that might link you to terrorism -- downloading pirated music. From The Hollywood Reporter:

"I think legislation is absolutely necessary as we are at a critical point as the technology is changing so quickly," [Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales said. "Because of the changes in technology, it's so much easier (to pirate) now. What that's doing is encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual property theft, and that involvement is used, quite frankly, to fund terrorist activities. It is a great concern to the Department of Justice and the administration."

...so if you're doing drugs while dissenting with the official word of the almighty Bush administration and listening to that Britney Spears you liked but not well enough to buy the whole damn CD (not to mention if you're ...gasp! a Muslim or atheist!) you might as well strap a bomb to your own chest and visit the nearest pizzeria.

I am so ready for whoever the hell is going to be president in 2009. I'd take just about anyone at this point.

pat robertson does it again

Go through the years of archives and you will find several posts dedicated to something stupid that Pat Robertson has said. Add to it the threat of God's wrath to the town of Dover, PA -- who recently ran God out of town (according to Robertson) by voting out eight "intelligent design" nutjobs from the school board.

the coolest thing since...well, in awhile

It was announced tonight that every student attending for at least four years and graduating from Kalamazoo, Michigan schools will receive a scholarship for at least 65% of tuition and mandatory fees at any public Michigan university or community college. That scholarship increases to 100% if the student has attended K-zoo schools, K-12 with steps along the way. It is called the Kalamazoo Promise an further information can be found here.

According to WOOD-TV, this is funded by private citizens, and the first program of its kind in the United States.

What can I say, this is pretty freakin awesome!

more on white phosphorus

Read this post on the Daily Kos, an excellent (as always) look at the situation with facts and links galore.

the best thing pat buchanan has ever written

With the rout of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's initiatives, Democratic victories in New Jersey and Virginia, and President Bush’s free fall in national polls on job performance, credibility and character, the Republican Party is in imminent peril of losing the country.

The end is near my friends, the end is near. Perhaps my predictions for the imminent downfall of the Republican Party were not completely bullshit!

Oh, and I like this summation of the war in Iraq:

Thus, in March, 2003, Bush, in perhaps the greatest strategic blunder in U.S. history, invaded an Arab nation that had not attacked us, did not want war with us, and did not threaten us—to strip it of weapons we now know it did not have.

Result: Shia and Kurds have been liberated from Saddam, but Iran has a new ally in southern Iraq, Osama has a new base camp in the Sunni Triangle, the Arab and Islamic world have been radicalized against the United States, and copy-cat killers of Al Qaida have been targeting our remaining allies in Europe and the Middle East: Spain, Britain, Egypt and Jordan. And, lest we forget, 2055 Americans are dead and Walter Reed is filling up.

EDIT: oops, link

no surprises

A man was shot at a mvie theater showing 50 Cent's new movie, Get Rich or Die Tryin' -- a movie that, I guess, glorifies the hell out of the Thug lifestyle (a friend summarized it's message as "nice guys with guns win"). I am really getting sick of this violence shit -- the glorification of it by rappers and other extreme losers.

I can't wait for the next turn that society makes, it can only be towards another enlightenment.

for those with blogs

Google is really pushing their adsense service (those silly ads at the top and bottom of this screen and to the left on a single post). If you have a blog, it's sort of a win-win for you to sign up (and I recommend that you do). You can put the ads where you want (hence my updates lately -- I'm trying to put them mostly where googlers get them and they're relatively unabstrusive to regular readers) and you get paid almost everytime someone clicks on them. Design them right and you can make some cash (perhaps to pay the hosting bill) for nothing.

If you're interested, I've linked to the program on the left hand side -- underneath the archives on the main page and at the top of the column on the posting page. Sign up, it's free and maybe you can make some money.

Oh, and I also added a link to the Firefox download to the left there (under the red cross link). If you don't have it, GET IT. It's a good thing (as a couple readers attested to a few posts previously). It's more secure, it's faster, and it's friendlier (as far as I'm concerned). Trust me, you'll like it.

a rose by any other name...

Italian TV is reporting that the US used white phosphorus against civilians in the battle of Falluja last year. The US agrees it was used, but only to illuminate. The Italians have pictures of people mutilated (and dead -- pretty nasty too, I've seen them...you can google them if you want to) by chemical burns similar to those that result from contact with white phosphorus. It doesn't look good.

And the U.S.'s response of "white phosphorus isn't a chemical weapon" is nothing but name games. The shit performs a chemical reaction that melts skin...call it what you want, but I think it's just as bad as anything we were accusing Saddam of having.

sweet home alabama...

So, the governor of Alabama is calling for a boycott of Aruba to get those lazy Aruban police off their asses (paraphrase there) and look for Natalee Holloway's abductors/killers. It is the fault of the Aruban police that she's missing, after all...Natalee is in no way responsible for hanging out with people she didn't know (and, it would seem, were not good people) in a foreign land. No, it's Aruba's fault that she's gone and so we must, must punish these people!!!

On a side note, this page lists 31 unsolved murders in the Huntsville area, here are two unsolved murders (and two arsons) in Shelby County, here are 17 unsolved murders in Dalton (including a police sargeant!!!), this page lists ten unidentified deaths, here's two in Jefferson County, five more in the Montgomery area, and, well, you get the point.

Using Gov. Riley's logic we should have all be avoiding the hell out of Alabama for a long, long time...of course, most of the above victims aren't pretty, white, and rich.

"we do not torture"

Remember those words, dear history, for when proof comes to light that we do, I want you to remember who said them.

It is funny though how Bush thinks that the world believes him even though he's protecting the right to torture more fiercely than Hussein ever defended his right to weapons of mass destruction...Hussein's defense was so fierce that we believed him (supposedly).

microsoft sucks

I'm trying to do something to the coding of this page, and it looks pretty damn good in Firefox -- but in internet explorer...what the fuck?

Sorry, just a little frustration (and excuse if this page looks messed up...since most visitors use IE)

the future is damned

With so many reasons to avoid Abercrombie & Fitch (like their use of too-young models and the fact tthat they have zombieized a generation of consumers with their complete and total bullshit), I guess it can only be said that I support this boycott, or girlcott. It's good to see kids standing up for something other than some trite, ridiculous protest...God knows the president got re-elected because the little fuckers* couldn't get off their asses to vote. Kids these days will do or say anything, sell them selves out completely, to be "cool"...and they don't even know they're doing it.

It is good that girls like 16-year-old girlcott organizer Emma Blackman-Mathis are out there (and getting themselves on the Today Show -- rock on!), but there's just not enough of them.

Take Tawana Clark, for instance, who is quoted as saying: "I think it's only older people that have a problem with it. Teenagers don't have a problem with it." (this aside fromt he fact that the girlcott is being organized by a bunch of high school girls...Tawana being 20) Grow up Tawana...quit being such a tool.

*terminology stolen from the late, great Hunter S. Thompson.

black site black eye

If you have yet to read or hear anything about the US government's black sites, you must. This is the sort of thing that resonates around the worl: it is the sort of story that drives madmen to hijack planes and fling them into skyscrapers, the sort of story that gathers effigy-burning mobs, and the sort of story that makes us the bad guys in the world. If what goes on in these sites is anything as bad as what would be expected, than ours is no better than those regimes of history that used torture and worse to get its way.

This is sick.

i'm old

It's my birthday, how appropriate is it that this came in the mail today?

C'mon, I'm 29...I'm not THAT old

another door

So I'm talking with one of my professors last night about the possibilities of him knowing of any internship possibilities and he brings up the idea that I should jsut go on to get my doctorate while I'm still at a point in my life where I could rather easily. He's mentioned it before, as have a few others (I seem to scream the ability and talent to my profs...what can I say?), but I have always shrugged it off as being something that I don't want to do. But it struck a chord last night...the idea of continuing another two years after what will already be two years when I get my Masters (I would definitely go to a school that's more condusive to a truly full-time schedule) isn't as scary as the three to four years that presented themselves before I even started...and it would be good for me, open twice as many doors as my masters will, which will already open five times as many doors as were open for me before... And it would prevent me from having to enter "the real world" for yet another couple years.

"Dr. Kyle"? I don't know, but it's more possible right now than at any time since undergrad...maybe more so. This is going to require some thought....