Midday Video

Springsteen and Jackson browne, "Racing In The Street":



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Bush Booed?

Speaking of Bloody dubya. Here he is throwing out the first pitch for the National's opening day. A co-worker whom I like to call "Mister CNN" said he saw this on the tv and it was all cheering. In this clip you'll hear lots of scattered boos and at one point President Bunnypants looks VERY pissed. Lots of booing or all cheering? You, and the CNN editing crew decide.



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Top Ten Conservative Idiots

A lunchtime read, Democratic Underground's Top Ten Conservative Idiots.

Bloody Dubya makes Numbers 1 and 2:



















BUSH HUGS BUNNY AS TROOPS MOURN 4,000TH SOLDIER
"George Bush larked about with a 6ft Easter Bunny yesterday… as his troops mourned their 4,000th death in Iraq."

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The 100 Unsexiest Men On The Planet

The 100 Unsexiest Men on the Planet.


Strangely they're virtually all Americans. From The Phoenix. Fortunately for my ego I was number 101 so I just missed out.

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Rev. Sun Myung Moon

About the time of the previous Genesis video people were becoming aware of the "Moonies", crazy(yes I said crazy) followers of Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Well the evil Reverend is still at the center of his web, and these days Congress sometimes worships him. Here's a bit of history:




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Video | Back, Way Back

When dinosaurs roamed the earth. Genesis from Wind and Wuthering, "One For The Vine":



Post Peter Gabriel and Steve Tackett.

I dedicate tonight's lyrics to dubya:

"Fifty thousand men were sent to do the will of one.
His claim was phrased quite simply, though he never voiced it loud,
I am he, the chosen one.

In his name they could slaughter, for his name they could die.
Though many there were believed in him, still more were sure he lied,
But they'll fight the battle on."

-

The Noose Tightens

The Noose Tightens: Science, Surveillance and the Culture of Control

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The War Tapes

Go to Google and full screen it.


Linked.
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Recession: Now Playing Everywhere

Dubya and the rest of the top 1% of the wealthy can't understand the "R" word. They live in a world of drivers, maids and cooks. "Gas is $3.35 gal? Who cares, send my driver around!"
Now here's a clip from a reality movie for the rest of us:



It'll probably get worse, just like dubya's horror flick, "Iraq". Wait, what am I saying? King Georgie(the dumber)just told us the violence in Iraq is a good sign, meaning the more people dead, the better his escalation I suppose.

War pigs and profiteers: "Bring 'em on".

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Pot Smoker Acquited For "Medical Necessity"

"Medical necessity" defense a success in Texas pot possession trial.

"Stevens, whose vomiting has been so severe that he was hospitalized and received blood transfusions, was arrested last October after an anonymous tipster saw him sharing a joint on a friend's porch in Amarillo and called the police. He had about a twelfth of an ounce of marijuana, resulting in a Class B misdemeanor charge that carries a penalty of up to six months in jail and a $2,000 fine. He probably could have gotten off with a fine or a year's probation, Blackburn says, "but he didn't want to; he wanted to take a stand." The trial lasted about 10 hours on Tuesday, and the jury came back after 11 minutes with a "not guilty" verdict."

Link and link.
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Midday Video

Ben Harper - "In The Colors":



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Iraq | Blurring The War

Photo.

My local McClatchy journamalist Steve Lannon is (embedded?) in Iraq doing his part to catapault our pentagon's propagandastory on the fantasmalistic progress in Iraq.

--
U.S. troops make progress in Iraq's Diyala province
By Steve Lannen
--

Best line of the article to show how safe and wonderful things really are:

“No contact, no Strykers getting blown up, no getting killed. It’s a good day”
-Sgt. Darrell Sammons of Doe Run, Ga.

Unfortunately Sgt. Sammons is wrong about no one dying. Lots of Iraqis dying of course. US soldiers? looks like around 7 in the last few days.
From:
Coalition deaths(does not include Iraqis or contractors):

Here's a Rolling Stone article on how well it's working with our "paid" Sunni allies.

A few more realistic news items about the carnage in dubya and Dick's Iraqi meat grinder are:
Here:
March 26, 2008 Clashes spread as U.S., Iraqi forces attack Shiite militia
Here:
3-26-08 More than 80 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in the fighting, centered on the southern oil hub of Basra and spreading to Shi'ite parts of Baghdad where Sadr's followers hold sway and the towns of Hilla, Kut and Diwaniya in the south.
Here:
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Dozens Dead in Basra Clashes;
Mahdi Army Occupies Kut
On and on:
Bombers attack Basra oil pipeline


End the occupation.
-

Recession? What Recession?

Yep, that about sums it up(click image to enlarge):




















Link: Mock, Paper, Scissors.

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Frontline | Bush's War

PBS Frontline's documentary "Bush's War" started last night. Watch the whole thing online here. Part 2 is on tonight. Here's a short preview:



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Nebula For The Morning

While dubya wreaks havoc here on earth in the NGC 3576 Nebula young stars are being born:




















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Forward Through Backwards Time

A cute Rocketboom video of traveling backwards in time through New York City:



Linked.

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The Ongoing Exclusion Of War Opponents

From the ever impressive Glenn Greenwald. You can't avoid the convoluted logic of the complicite corporate media on the Iraqi bloodbath. I was reminded of this once again while listening to NBC news(from another room) last night as they told their viewers that the increasing American service deaths would make it harder to leave Iraq. My question, spoken out loud but unheard by them was, why? It should make it more imperative to get us out of dubya's quagmire. Here's Glenn Greenwald:
--

The ongoing exclusion of war opponents from the Iraq debate

"..Even now, Americans are inundated with "The Surge is Working!" rhetoric and hear almost none of the views expressed in this interview, just as -- prior to the invasion -- they were exposed to every shade and color of pro-invasion advocates while the anti-war view was drastically minimized and even suppressed. Amazingly, nothing has actually changed from that 2002-2003 period when -- as even Howard Kurtz documented in one of the better (and only) pieces of establishment journalism examining pre-war media coverage -- actual war opponents were buried, rendered invisible, and war advocates were amplified and celebrated. That's still happening.."

Link.

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Midday Video

Here's Shawn Mullins Live, "All in My Head".



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Office Depot | Corporate Jerks Of The Month

Seeing as how there should be an award for a National Corporate Jerk of the Month. Office Depot is my worthy candidate for March.

My daughter bought what turned out to be a Toshiba lemon for her school work from Office Depot last week. She had some problems with it, and within 3 days after she bought it(Friday) it crashed. I drove her to the new Office Depot in Nicholasville Kentucky where she'd bought it to exchange it for another.

The VERY unfriendly/unsympathetic manager there(Shawna) told us we'd have to take it to a Lexington store(15 miles away) to exchange it because they were out of them there. We were't happy but we went to the Lexington store. When we got there the EVEN MORE UN-NICE manager M. Boyd told us, "they'd just sold their last two Toshiba's" of that model that morning.

Condensing this corporate victim nightmare as much as possible: After "manager" Boyd told us he "didn't give a damn"(yes that's a quote), he told us they did have some in stock in Frankfort and Winchester. I being completely stunned at this treatment told him I was not driving anymore, that they would just have to order us another, or whatever they had to do.

During this crap they put us through there was NEVER a word of sympathy or apology from these corporate geeks. We went home shocked and amazed, but on the way we talked it over and both my daughter and I agreed that there was no way we'd do business with a company of this rudeness. Both managers attitude's we dealt with were a combination of indifference and surly rudeness. Office Depot policy? I don't know.

We went to pick the replacement up at the Nicholasville store yesterday and both told the manager that Mechelle just wanted her money back. I'm not a big Circuit City fan but they have a nice sale going on and she's going there this afternoon.

Office Depot: Corporate Jerk Store of the Month.

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Canada | Please Stop Butchering Baby Seals

Contact The Canadian Minister of International Trade:

"Over the past four years, more than one million seals — almost all just weeks-old babies — have been brutally killed for their fur. Many people think the Canadian seal hunt ended decades ago. But it hasn't — it's set to begin again in a matter of days.

Ignoring findings from independent scientists and veterinarians, The Canadian government has set the kill quota for 2008 even higher than last year — an astonishing 275,000 seals will be clubbed and shot over the next few months. Scientists warn that the seal hunt poses a threat to the survival of seal populations, particularly as harp seals now face the added threat of global warming. And veterinary panels have concluded that the slaughter results in "considerable and unacceptable suffering," noting that sealers often fail to comply with anti-cruelty laws."

Click here now to tell Mr. Emerson that the seal hunt is bad for the Canadian economy, bad for tourism, and bad for Canada — and that it is time to end the commercial seal hunt for good.

Linked.

And the Humane Society.

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The World's Smallest Car?

I had this forwarded to me this morning. Pretty interesting and pretty funny. The world's smallest car:



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Frank To File Bill To Legalize Small Amounts Of Marijuana

Well this is interesting. It's about time someone took this up on a Federal level.

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Rep. Frank says he'll file bill to legalize marijuana

BOSTON—Rep. Barney Frank said he plans to file a bill to legalize "small amounts" of marijuana.

Frank announced his plans late Friday on the HBO show "Real Time," hosted by Bill Maher.

"I'm going to file a bill as soon as we go back to remove all federal penalties for the possession or use of small amounts of marijuana," Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, told Maher...

Link.

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Raining McCain | Surreal Video of The Week

Is it real, is it from The Onion? Or some surreal cult that does performance art? All I know is that you may be screaming -My eyes! My eyes!- After this.



Raining McCain? The mind reels.

Just don't blame me, blame Yglesias.

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Saturday Night's All Right... For Video

David Gray at the KFOG Concert For Kids with, "You're The World To Me":



So have a great Saturday Ladies and Germs. I helped my older daughter move most of the today and I'm worn out. 'Night.
"Enjoy life, for you're dead a long time"
--proverb

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80,000 Angry Men | Is The "Surge" Collapsing

If Bushco has stopped paying protection money to the Sunnis and Shia militias will the escalationsurge collapse completely? Here's The Real News Network:



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Cosmic Disaster | A Gamma Ray Burst

Wow...here's another cosmic menace that may destroy us all and everything we've ever known. A gamma ray burst. Here's the scary news:

"Research has been conducted to investigate the consequences of Earth being hit by a beam of gamma rays from a nearby (about 500 light years) gamma ray burst. This is motivated by the efforts to explain mass extinctions on Earth and estimate the probability of extraterrestrial life. A gamma ray burst at 6000 light years would result in mass extinction; a 1000 light year distant burst would be equivalent to a 100,000 megaton nuclear explosion. A burst 100 light years away would blow away the atmosphere, create tidal waves, and start to melt the surface of the earth. There is a one in a million chance that there could be a gamma ray burst as near as the earth's closest star, Alpha Centauri, in the lifetime of the earth. Such a burst, at 4.3 lightyears distant, would effectively incinerate the earth."

-Boingboing

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Flying Spaghetti Monster Statue

For members of all religions. Bless the noodly appendages of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. A Flying Spaghetti Monster statue placed on courthouse lawn in Crossfield Tennessee.



















Linked-and at BB.

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Diebold's Early Election Results

The Onion tells us who the 2008 winners already are:



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Midday Video | Almost Lover

"Almost Lover" from A Fine Frenzy.



By the way the guy who could say bye to A Fine Frenzy's Alison is a fool. IMHO.

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R.I.P. | Arthur C. Clark

Sir Arthur C. Clark Dies at 90. Author of "2001 A Space Odyssey". Early visionary of satellites, the World Wide Web, and so much more.



-

Remember Abu Ghraib

The New Yorker has more on Abu Ghraib up now online.




















Sabrina Harman, the "thumbs up" girl in the Abu Ghraib photos has an interview up on The New Yorker. With video, photos and more. Bushco still has secret "Abu Ghraib" sites around the world where torture is still practiced(and fine-tuned) every day.

Linked.

Link to movie "Standard Operating Procedure".

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Ohio's voting machines Are Official Crime Scenes

Well, well. Maybe Kenneth Blackwell's theft of the 2004 election for dumbya hasn't been completely lost.

--

"At least 15 touch-screen voting machines that produced improbable numbers in Ohio's 2006 statewide election are now under double-lock in an official crime scene. And the phony "Homeland Security Alert" used by Republicans to build up George W. Bush's 2004 vote count in a key southwestern Ohio county has come under new scrutiny."

From Free Press and truthout.

.....
And this.
"After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election. A review of the available data reveals that in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004 -- more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes."
-Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
......
Rolling Stone, 2006

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Tent Cities Growing In The U.S.

From the BBC.



-

Condi Vs. Code Pink

Condi_Sleaza meets Code Pink again.












BagNews.

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Obama's Speech In Philadelphia

You may have seen clips of this speech by Barack Obama in Philadelphia. He addresses the media's coverage of his former minister's comments, the state of race in America, etc. A good speech.



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The Wailing Of The Iraqi Nation

The Washington Post points out that the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse are in Iraq "just as the war is about to hit its five-year mark, already roughly a year longer than the Civil War or U.S. involvement in World War II." No one is greeting them with flowers and candy and American occupation officials are afraid to announce any of their schedules since it would certainly provoke even more violent protests than the rocket attack and explosions that have been reported so far.

-

Midday Video

One of my favorite Dire Straits songs, Live. Hold up your lighters:



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Republican Network Fox News Smears Barack Obama

This is why no Democrat should ever appear on FAUX News:

This week, film director Robert Greenwald released a short YouTube video called "FOX Attacks Obama: Part 2"—his second video detailing how FOX continuously smears Barack Obama. But worse, he shows how other networks are repeating FOX's smears word-for-word!


"FOX is a Republican mouthpiece, not a legitimate news organization. Real news organizations must reject FOX's smears of Barack Obama, not parrot them."--MoveOn and Brave New Films.

Sign the Petition to the corporate media

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Fundraiser For Greg Fischer | Help Beat Mitch McConnell

I know, but I can dream. Mitch has amassed millions from corporate special interests for this fall's election. This one won't be a cakewalk for Bush's boy Mitch. Greg Fischer seems to be a worthy Democratic candidate. There's a fund raiser this Tuesday in Lexington for Greg.

What: Fund Raiser for Greg Fischer - Democrat for U.S. Senate
When: Tuesday, March 18 – 5:30 – 7:00 P.M.
Where: Ann Tower / Downtown Arts Center – 141 East Main Street, Lexington
Minimum requested donation: $100

RSVP by calling: (859) 225-5398 or email: jenniferbethmiller@insightbb.com
Join us for cocktails and conversation!

If you're in Kentucky look for fundraisers in your area. Give till it hurts. It'll feel SOooo good when we see the last of Mitch "Bushco" McConnell.

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Real News | "Winter Soldiers", Iraq Veterans Against The War

Winter Soldier testimonials
Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) hold press conference in Washington, DC



-

American Masters: Photographs | Harry Callahan

Harry Callahan(No not that Harry), 1912-1999.
















Chicago, 1950

To be a photographer, one must photograph.
No amount of book learning, no checklist of seminars attended, can substitute for the simple act of making pictures.
Experience is the best teacher of all.
And for that, there are no guarantees that one will become an artist.
Only the journey matters.
- Harry Callahan

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Google Sky

Google's astronomical answer to Google Earth - Google Sky is up.













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Saturday Video

The wonderful Natalie Merchant with a live "Carnival":



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To The Tune Of John McCain's Cabin...

This is hilarious. I've been looking for an excuse to post the McCain "cabin" documentary video and I guess this is it.
When I first saw the following video I kept noticing that John's daughter kept referring to their lake home as a "cabin". On the video you can see that it's not by a big stretch of the imagination a "cabin". As expected our corporate "News" denizens have picked up the McCain rustic cabin meme and run with it. Digby explains it best.

"..guess who owns John McCain's "rustic cabin" -- the one with the guest house and the pool? Cindy McCain, the wealthy and politically connected Arizona beer heiress McCain married shortly after leaving his first wife, and just in time to move to Arizona to run for Congress."

Here's the article from Jameson Foser on our "News" Media's scrutiny of Democratic finances while ignoring St. John, their old warrior's somewhat lavish life thanks to cindy(wife #2).
And now the best part-the video itself. Here's John's "rustic cabin" in daughter's "amateur video" with their ever so wonderful journamalistic friends:



Now could "The Onion" do it better?

Fantastic in a Valley Girl meets Daddy's Rich "News" friends kind of way. Where Media Hos sell their journalist souls for Republican bar-b-que and burgers.

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Railroaded Siegelman | "All Roads Lead To Rove"

Don Siegelman is the elected Governor of Alabama who's been railroaded into prison by Republican operatives from Karl "evil geek" Rove to Republican moles in the Justice("just-us"?) Department. Other evidence coming out has shown that he probably had his re-election bid stolen by electronic theft and other thuggary. "All Roads Lead to Rove" is a message Siegelman scrawled on a message to a friend.

Here's Crooks and Liars:

A new review of evidence suggests that an aligned group of Republican interests were pressing for — and seeking to profit financially from — the trial of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on charges of bribery, according to Sam Stein of HuffPo.
Please contact Rep. John Conyers and Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairmen of their respective Judiciary committees and ask them to appoint an Independent Investigator. You can also donate to Siegelman’s Defense Fund.

Kos Link.

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Slowed By March Madness

My Blog posting has been even slower of late but it's not my fault. Along with all the other distractions it's now the March Madness time of year. I watch a LOT(or try) of College basketball. Especially this time of year during all the tournaments. Kentucky pretty much got beat at the buzzer today in their delayed SEC tournament game. Oooh well. That loss may actually help them in the NCAA "Big Dance".
I'll feed my Blog here as I can. Not that you not-so-good-samaritans would miss me. I do this mostly just to annoy you. BWAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHAHA..Gasp..
Anyway gotta feed the Blog. Meanwhile here's my favorite Wildcat fan:



















Ashley Judd


Isn't she fetching?
-

Yeah What It's Like

Good Friday Morning!
Everlast tells it like it is. Crank it up and rip the knobs off!



-

Global water and air volume

An interesting visual illustrating the earth's total air and water in side by side comparison to the planet:


The spheres show how finite water and air supplies are. The water sphere measures 1390 kilometres across and has a volume of 1.4 billion cubic kilometres. This includes all the water in the oceans, seas, ice caps, lakes and rivers as well as ground water, and that in the atmosphere. The air sphere measures 1999 kilometres across and weighs 5140 trillion tonnes. As the atmosphere extends from Earth it becomes less dense. Half of the air lies within the first 5 kilometres of the atmosphere.

Link and link.
-

Morning Video

From Peter Bjorn and John, "Young Folks":



-

The Iraq Follies

From MoJo comes this little gem detailing just a few examples of our National Media and punditry's orgasm for dubya's Iraq attack. Back in those strange days when everything I saw from Bushco regarding Iraq set off bullshit alarms(Ex: Colin "Ho" Powell at the UN), but virtually all our "News" media was in the tank. If you weren't drooling over attacking Iraq, you wouldn't be on the tv-or in the paper much either for that matter. That's when I became a firm follower of Blogs and Internet news. It was/is the only place I've found sanity at times. Here's the top five of Greg Mitchell with The Iraq Follies:

Eighteen things you've already forgotten about the media's flawed coverage of Iraq.
1) The day before the invasion, Bill O'Reilly said, "If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation; I will not trust the Bush administration again, all right?"

2) Phil Donahue lost his show at MSNBC, he later claimed, because he did not wave the flag enough. A leaked NBC memo confirmed Donahue's suspicion, noting that the host "presents a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.... At the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."

3) After the fall of Baghdad, MSNBC's Chris Matthews declared, "We're all neocons now."

4) The same day, Joe Scarborough, also on MSNBC, said, "I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians, and Hollywood types."

5) The New York Times' Thomas Friedman wrote, "As far as I am concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war.... Mr. Bush doesn't owe the world any explanation for missing chemical weapons."

Link.

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Rampant Corruption | Another Bush Legacy

Here's just another daily example of what happens if you don't play ball with the Bushco crime family. This one is in Philadelphia.
WashPost:

"After Philadelphia's housing director refused a demand by President Bush's housing secretary to transfer a piece of city property to a business friend, two top political appointees at the department exchanged e-mails discussing the pain they could cause the Philadelphia director.

"Would you like me to make his life less happy? If so, how?" Orlando J. Cabrera, then-assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, wrote about Philadelphia housing director Carl R. Greene.

"Take away all of his Federal dollars?" responded Kim Kendrick, an assistant secretary who oversaw accessible housing. She typed symbols for a smiley-face, ":-D," at the end of her January 2007 note.

Cabrera wrote back a few minutes later: "Let me look into that possibility."

The e-mails, obtained by The Washington Post, came to light as a result of a lawsuit provoked by HUD's decision last September to strip the Philadelphia Housing Authority of as much as $50 million in federal funds. In December, it declared the agency in violation of rules that underpin its ability to decide precisely how it will spend federal housing funds. Kendrick was the official who formally notified the authority that she had found it in violation."

Thanks to Kos.
It will take generations to figure out exactly how corrupt and thuggish these people are. We're only getting small bits here and there that see the light of day. These are nice people in the same sense that Al Capone was nice people.

-

Dubya's Iraq Boondoggle - Do The Math

Or Tom Tomorrow will do the math for ya.

-

Midday Video | We Are All Made Of Stars

Moby's "We Are All Made of Stars"



See if you can name all the guest stars.

-

Possessed | A Hoarder's Documentary

'POSSESSED' enters the complicated worlds of four hoarders; people whose lives are dominated by their relationship to possessions. The film questions whether hoarding is a symptom of mental illness or a revolt against the material recklessness of consumerism. When does collecting become hoarding and why do possessions exert such an influence on our lives?


POSSESSED from Martin Hampton on Vimeo.

Linked.

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Was Governor Eliot Spitzer Set Up?

Some highly suspicious and smelly information is coming from the Spitzer story. Looks as if he may have been targeted by Republicans in high places and government agencies. Which these days are only extensions of the GOP. As to whether Spitzer will resign I don't know. As someone said, "a certain Republican senator from Louisiana still has a job(Vitter)... ditto for one from Idaho(toe tapping Craig)". The question is would Bushco Republicans target a political rival? Hey, come on now that's a serious CNN type question! Stop yer laughing!

Linked FDL.

Update: Don't miss the link at Smokinggun.

-

The Awesome Mind Of John McCain

Had to post this exchange between a reporter and John McCain. I'd read it before but it just had to be repeated. This is the person that the Republican dead-enders and fundies want to take our country the rest of the way down the Bush road.
-

The New York Times Web site reported the following exchange with a reporter in Iowa in March 2007:

Q: "What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush's policy, which is just abstinence?"

McCain: (Long pause) "Ahhh. I think I support the president's policy."

Q: "So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?"

McCain: (Long pause) "You've stumped me."

Link. Thanks Thers.

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Miers, Bolton Subpoenas | House Judiciary Committee Files Suit In Federal Court

From the press release:
The Judiciary Committee, as plaintiff, is asking the Court to find the following:

(1) Ms. Miers is not "immune" from the obligation to appear before the Committee in response to a duly authorized, issued and served Committee subpoena;

(2) Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten must produce privilege logs identifying all documents withheld on grounds of executive privilege;

(3) Executive privilege does not cover documents not involving the President or undertaken directly in preparation for advising the President or whose contents are widely-known, previously released or previously the subject of extensive, authorized testimony, and that Ms. Miers’s and Mr. Bolten’s claims of executive privilege are, in any event, overcome by the Committee’s compelling need for the subpoenaed testimony and documents.

(4) that Ms. Miers is required to appear before the Committee to respond to questions put to her pertinent to the Investigation and to invoke executive privilege only if and when appropriate;

(5) that Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten are required to provide, as required by the subpoenas, a detailed privilege log, identifying by author, recipient, date and subject matter those documents responsive to the subpoena that have been withheld on executive privilege grounds;

(6) that Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten are required to produce all non-privileged documents responsive to the subpoenas.

Unfortunately the judge is a dubya appointee and overall rubber stamp but we'll see.

Kos Link.


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60 Minutes | National McCain Fluffing

A good example of why I haven't watched CBC's 60 Minutes in ages.
--

Scott Pelley gives John McCain a National butt kissing on 60 Minutes.

-

Oh No! Flat Panel TVs Not Green

Damn, just when I was near splurging for one. What's a green videophile to do now? Solar power?
--

A 42-inch plasma TV set, turned on for just a few hours a day, can consume more electricity than a full-sized refrigerator, consumer groups said.

Link and link.

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The Onion Movie

Coming soon to a DVD near you. It's The Onion Movie:



-

Dubya Has To Have His Torture

The George W. Bush legacy:

Bush Vetoes the (anti)Torture Bill

-

The Myth Of The Surge

Rolling Stone has a good article up online about dubya's escalationsurge. Some of us already knew what the "surge" would accomplish.When you stop paying insurgents blood money they'll turn on you. The escalationsurge was doomed to fail. You simply CANNOT occupy a country while fighting a swarm of well armed guerrillas/insurgents. Much less when that swarmof fighters is divided into smaller swarms determined to kill each other and you.
--

The Myth of the Surge
Hoping to turn enemies into allies, U.S. forces are arming Iraqis who fought with the surgents. But it's already starting to backfire. A report from the front lines of the new Iraq
--By Nir Rosen, Rolling Stone

Link.
-

Saturday | American Gods Free Download

Well Hellooo Passerby. I'm back in my little Blogdom for a few moments. Hope you're having a fine weekend. We've had about 6 inches of snow here. I love it, as long as I can mostly enjoy it from inside. Here's what I'm reading right now and it's an awesome read-a four point two five on my five scale:
--

American Gods



















by Neil Gaiman

"Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow."

..Shadow heard himself laugh, over the sound of the music. He was happy. It was as if the last thirty-six hours had never happened, as if the last three years had not happened, as if his life had evaporated into the daydream of a small child, riding the carousel in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, on his first trip back to the States, a marathon journey by ship and by car, his mother standing there, watching him proudly, and himself sucking his melting Popsicle, holding on tightly, hoping that the music would never stop, the carousel would never slow, the ride would never end. He was going around and around and around again . . . Then the lights went out, and Shadow saw the gods..
--American Gods

Here's the link to read it for free all month. Although I refuse to condone it, you'd probably be better off downloading it somewhere else. Here's a Boingboing linky.

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This Just In | Rep. Tim Couch Is...

Speaking of Trolls. This may be some bad news for them. It really looks like Rep. Tim Couch is dummer than a bag of rocks.

Kentuckians couldn't post anonymous comments to Web sites anymore under House Bill 775, filed Tuesday by Rep. Tim Couch, R-Hyden.

I don't think I've ever posted to a website anonymously anyway but this is teh stupid.

Thanks to DitchMitch.

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Internet Trolls | A Video

From Boingboing a little video on the Internet Troll:



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John McCain And Friends BrutalizingThe Navaho?

Well from the General's website we learn that Johny McCain has some interesting little sidelines going on. You think the media crows "reporting" on him might investigate this? Hmmm..crickets-chirping..
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"SYNOPSIS: To facilitate his special interests, namely: Peabody Western Coal Company (the largest in the US) and the Mohave Generating Facility in Laughlin (operated by Bechtel) delivering low cost electricity to Las Vegas's Casinos, John McCain (a/k/a "Saddam McCain") introduced and arranged for the enforcement of unethical and Constitutionally unlawful legislations which brutally displaced thousands of Navajo farmers onto a Nuclear Waste Dump to live after brutalizing them for two decades in peaceful resistance. McCain assembled (Navajo Resettlement & Navajo Accommodation Agreement, Navajo Settlement, and amendments to PL 93-531, PL S.1003) illegal and unethical enactments designed to force Native American Navajo of the Dineh Band off their Arizona lands, moving them onto Church's Hill in Nevada, depriving them of lands they've owned since 1500 AD..."

Here's the website of the United Nations:

"The Black Mesa region in Arizona, USA is home to the indigenous communities of the Dineh (Navajo) and Hopi peoples. This region also contains major deposits of coal which are being extracted by North America's largest strip mining operation. The coal mines have had a major impact on families in the region. Local water sources have been poisoned, resulting in the death of livestock. Homes near the mines suffer from blasting damage. The coal dust is pervasive, as well as smoke from frequent fires in the stockpiles. Not coincidentally, the people in the area have an unusually high incidence of kidney and respiratory disease. "
"The Dineh (otherwise known as Navajo) were stripped of all land title and forced to relocate. Their land was turned over to the coal companies without making any provisions to protect the burial or sacred sites that would be destroyed by the mines. People whose lives were based in their deep spiritual and life-giving relationship with the land were relocated into cities, often without compensation, forbidden to return to the land that their families had occupied for generations. People became homeless with significant increases in alcoholism, suicide, family break up, emotional abuse and death. "

--Marsha Monestersky for the UN Commission on Human Rights and Women Enacting Change at the UN

Link.

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International Space Station

Nice image of the International Space Station taken last month.














Link.

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My Soyo | New Set-Up | Willy Mason

I bought a new 22" flat panel monitor yesterday which is supersweet except I don't have it adjusted quite right yet. It still has a stretched look to the display-which of course makes my(already crappy looking) Lil' Blog look even worse. For a part time, not much free time, amateur Blogger it'll have to do for now. I'll just tweak it as I can. It's only here to throw things up that I find interesting at a given moment anyway. Kind of a boring Post Secret if you will.
Maybe when I hit the lotto I'll have the time to learn all the necessary tricks and programming skills to really boost my little ol' Blog here. Then again maybe not, I'd probably just escape if I won the lottary. Hell these days I'm lucky to get a few moments a day to get my News online, do a little entertainment surfing and maybe, just maybe, put up a few things that interest me at that moment.
Anyhoo, I love the new screen. Morrowind looks fantastic! At work I'll still have to use my two ancient(computerwise) hefty, old-fashioned 19" monitors.
For those visitors still following along this isn't leading to anything other than me posting this video so without further gloating and/or whining here's Willy Mason with "Save Myself":



BOOYAH!!
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Surprise! Knee-Pad Democrats To Roll Over Again To Bush

House Democratic leadership: not just complicit but also self-destructive

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BUSHED!

Bush crimes. Olbermann has a never ending supply of them:



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Two Parties, Two Rules

Exactly what he said:

The very powers Bush claimed will, for a Democratic president, be the foundation for impeachment.

Of course I'm like some others who believe Bushco has no intention of giving up these powers they're stealing.

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Dr. Steve Brule

Here he is from "Channel 5" Dr. Steve Brule. Sooo strange:



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Midday Video

On to lighter and nicer things Here's Matt Kearney with "Breathe In Breathe Out":



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Hack Journalism and More Distortions On The Drug War

Or Why I Love The Internet Part I
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My local corporate newspaper The Lexington-Herald had a nice little article this morning on their front page about...well..basically about how wonderful that war on mari-jee-wanna is going in Kentucky. Bill Estep's article is a classic rehash of the one's you'd find circa 1980 with the old required state/federal slew of mis-information, dire warnings about the strength of todays pot, it's leading to other drugs. Estep even throws in a little item about drug money being used to buy votes, like that's a HUUUGE problem.
My feeling is that maybe someone's getting a bit uneasy about all this "prison overcrowding" talk that we've been hearing lately and decided that the sheeplepeople might start coming to some sense about that "war on drugs" stalemate that's been going on since Randolph Hearst and J.Edgar Hoover decided to criminalize one of the most harmless drugs on the planet.
Apparently the powers that be at the Herald-Leader's corporate headquarters and some government/police state/prison officials decided to nip this in the "bud" right quick. If you want to talk journalism they could have done an in-depth investigation of the insanity of the war on drugsmarijuana users. Unfortunately you're just not going to find honesty in corporate news regarding marijuana or the whole war on drugs for that matter. They might have to tell you about the CIA's envolvement in the drug trade, etc. or actually compare the real killers, or give some actual real world info regarding "the man's" approved drugs compared to unapproved, such astobacco(400,000+ deaths annually, cigarette smoking only), alcohol( 85,000, direct only). As for marijuana(zero deaths, direct), all illicit drugs(17,000, direct AND indirect). In this whole apparently government sponsored article by AgentMister Estep I found a total of three sentences by people who tried to interject some common sense into this silly and insane "lock-em-up" war on drug users that the Herald Leader is goose stepping right along with. Thanks Bill Estep you've done your job well. Good boy.
















Photo, The Enemy Within

As for J.C. Lawson, the whipping boy in Bill Estep's corporately approved marijuana hit piece. All the best J.C. I'm sure like me back in 1980 you probably thought that by now there would be some sanity in regard to pot, or as "Mister Narc" Bill Estep would call it "dope".
You're just another victim in their war J.C. Maybe someday our bought and paid for politicians and our corporate media will actually turn their eyes on the reality of this war on a percentage of their population. Maybe just maybe they'll start telling the truth and making some changes. I've been waiting since the seventies for that to happen. I'm not holding my breath now. Drug War Law enforcement is big business, prisons are big business, corporate "news" media is big business. Right Bill Estep?
Another perfect example of why I rarely read more than the cover of the H-L's front section and why these days I'm thankful EVERY day for my Internet and independent journalism.
If you're like me and haven't believed(with good reason) anything the government/police has said about marijuana since the late sixties then go here, here and here -to start- for some REAL world information. As has been said often the really dangerous thing about marijuana is that you can go to prison for it.

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Wingnut Woman On Women

Well this is delicious. The Washington Post puts up this wingnut woman's article declaring all her gender as being teh stuuupid. Immediately the Post is castigated -as they should be- and told to shove their misogyny. And I'm sure they have no idea why and how anyone could be insulted. Clueless twits.


The delicious part is the comments. Start here and here.

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Whataya Know Someone Moves To Stop Bushco!

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Navy must protect endangered whales from the potentially lethal effects of underwater sonar during anti-submarine training off the Southern California coast, rejecting president Bush’s attempt to exempt the exercises from environmental laws.

Link
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Holy Crap! House Gets Ready To Fold On FISA

According to CandL the House is getting ready to fold to Bushco on FISA like limp fish, or Democratic politicians, but I repeat myself. Read here. Watch the video



Sign an emergency petition here. Email/snailmail/fax your Representative here.
Jeebus these people are like dubya punching bags!

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One More Thing

Before I go, here from Taylor Marsh is 100 reasons to vote for Hillary Clinton:

The top five:
Reason #1:
In Arkansas she was instrumental in straightening out their school system - taking it from one of the worst systems to a role model used by other troubled schools on how to improve public education.

Reason #2:
In 2006, she led the fight to kill the anti-gay Republican constitutional amendment that for the first time would have added laws to the Constitution that would INCREASE discrimination.

Reason #3:
After being pummeled by the public for trying to pass Universal Health care while she was First Lady, she dusted herself off and in 1997, led a federal effort that provided insurance support for children whose parents were unable to provide them with health coverage.

Reason #4:
She was able to secure a raise in research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health.

Reason #5:
She initiated the Adoption and Safe Families Act.

Continue.

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Night Eyes

Night All. On my way out I'd like you to meet..
William Degouve de Nuncques




















Nocturne in the Parc Royal, Brussels

"To make a painting, all you need to do is to take some paints, draw some lines, and fill the rest up with feelings."-
--William Degouve de Nuncques

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Bill Maher's Latest New Rules

Warning: Some strong late night language. I'd like to add a personal new rule. On corporate NBC "News" this evening a reporter declared that he'd asked Obama if he would have Michael Bloomberg as his running mate.
My latest rule: Moronic newscasters are not allowed to ask Democratic Presidential candidates if they'd run with Michael Bloomberg as their vice-Presidential running mate. If the moronic "journamalist" must ask this dumbass question then the candidate is required-not just allowed-but REQUIRED to punch the questioner in the face.
Thank you.
Michael Bloomberg is about as bi-partisan as John McCain-or Ralph Nader for that matter.
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World Wide Telescope

Amateur astronomers get ready to drool. Coming this Spring from Microsoft is World Wide Telescope . Supposedly a virtual wet dream for us astronomy lovers. Here's a TED preview video:



"While watching the demo, I realized the way I look at the world was about to change."
Robert Scoble

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Spies Like Us | A Match Made In Heaven

Here's the Billboard Liberation Front's new campaign billboard on behalf of the NSA and the nasty telecom.

"ATT initially downplayed its heroic efforts in the War on Terror, preferring to serve in silence behind the scenes. “But then we realized we had a PR win on our hands,” noted ATT's V.P. of Homeland Security James Croppy. “Not only were we helping NSA cut through the cumbersome red tape of the FISA system, we were also helping our customers by handing over their e-mails and phone records to the government. Modern life is so hectic – who has time to cc the feds on every message? It’s a great example of how we anticipate our customers’ needs and act on them. And, it should be pointed out, we offered this service free of charge.”

Commenting on the action, and responding to questions about pending privacy litigation and the stalled Congressional effort to shield the telecoms from these lawsuits, NSA spokesperson [REDACTED] remarked: “[REDACTED] we [REDACTED] condone [REDACTED] warrantless [REDACTED], [REDACTED] SIGINT intercepts, [REDACTED] torture [REDACTED] information retrieval by [REDACTED] means necessary.”

Linked.
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