From the geniuses at the San Diego Union Tribune

By Craig Gustafson
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

July 28, 2007

In one of the broadest tests of electronic balloting to date, computer and election experts had no problem hacking into the same kind of touch-screen voting machines used by San Diego County....



No Fucking Shit, Sherlock.

How long have I been bitching about these voting machines?
The comments are entertaining also. I don't know why I'm still surprised at the idiocy of RepugnantThuglicans.

More voting stuff

California Report Slams E-Voting System Security
Researchers commissioned by California have found security issues in every electronic voting system they tested, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen said today.Part 1 of a special five-part series. -->
Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
Friday, July 27, 2007 4:00 PM PDT

Researchers commissioned by the State of California have found security issues in every electronic voting system they tested, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen said Friday.
The report was published Friday as part of a complete review of the state's e-voting systems initiated earlier this year by Bowen's office.

And last night on NOW Greg Palast.

I'm busy

I'm at Anna's in LA. We got seventeen years to catch up on. See ya Monday.

House Panel Votes for Contempt Charges in Firings Case

By Dan Eggen and Paul Kane

Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 25, 2007; 2:48 PM

The House Judiciary Committee voted today to issue contempt citations for two of President Bush's most trusted aides, taking its most dramatic step yet towards a constitutional showdown with the White House over the Justice Department's dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.

The panel voted 22-17, along party lines, to issue citations to Joshua B. Bolten, White House chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, former White House counsel. Both refused to comply with committee subpoenas after Bush declared that documents and testimony related to the prosecutor firings were protected by executive privilege.

Because we are a nation of LAWS.

Chalmers Johnson from Tomdispatch

The Life and Times of the CIAWall Street Brokers, Ivy League Professors, Soldiers of Fortune, Ad Men, Newsmen, Stunt Men, Second-Story Men, and Con Men on Active Duty for the United States
By Chalmers Johnson

This essay is a review of Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner (Doubleday, 702 pp., $27.95).


I waaaaaaant it. I want the book, dammnit.

still reading

Planet of Slums by Mike Davis.

Possibly the most depressing book evah.

The most depressing sentence so far?

p. 132
"International developement agencies encourage destructive transport policies by their preference for financing roads rather than rails, as well as by encouraging the privatization of local transportation."

Next up on the suicide watch reading list? Perkins' latest, of course, The Secret History of the American Empire. I'm actually halfway through "..Slums" and I started "...Empire" a while ago, but put it down for a while. There are some disturbing similarities and some organizations that are mentioned in both books, namely, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank.

refers back to this one

Kings, Queens and dorkwads

Last night I watched about ten minutes of a show on PBS called Queen & Country .

I looked for a web page to see if I could find the exact quote that made me reach for the remote and click the OFF button in disgust, but I couldn't find one. Some smiling, chubby Canadian dude was going on about how much the Americans love the Monarchy and he was so proud that the Canadians actually had a Queen, and the Americans don't.

Huh?

First of all, I didn't even know that the Canadians considered the Queen of England their Queen, and secondly, I wondered if this guy had any clue about why the Revolutionary War in the American Colonies was fought?

(Hint: We need a new revolution to get rid of this dorkwad in the White House who tells us yet again that he thinks he is King George.

That and the snubbing of the Queen by this dude (um, not surprising that a woman would be snubbed in a predominantly Muslim country is it?) was about all I could stand to watch regarding royalty last night.

I must admit though, that this picture is priceless, the Queen sure has dudes number, don't she?



Speaking of PBS, I know where I'll be tonight.

I'll be plopped right in front of the teevee watching NOW (even thought this particular episode looks like it might be sad) and Bill Moyers Journal (because I must see The Yes Men ).

Completely unrelated, unless you consider Machiavellian machinations and the new cold war that has pulled in Britain and Russia :

Kissinger’s Secret Meeting With Putin

Judge throws out Plame's lawsuit
By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer1:26 PM PDT, July 19, 2007

...Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, and one of the couple's lawyers, said Bates' decision recognized that the Wilsons' claims posed "important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials."

But, she said, the judge dismissed their lawsuit on a threshold legal issue centered on the difficulty of suing a federal official.

"While we are obviously very disappointed by today's decision, we have always expected that this case would ultimately be decided by a higher court." Sloan said. "We disagree with the court's holding and intend to pursue this case vigorously to protect all Americans from vindictive government officials who abuse their power for their own political ends."


Democrats: Miers immunity claim may be illegitimate
By Elana Schor
July 19, 2007

Democrats Move Toward Holding Miers in Contempt
By Emma Schwartz
Posted 7/18/07
...The House could also vote to put Miers in "inherent contempt," which would mean holding her in the congressional jail, though that hasn't happened since the 1930s...

Democrats need to move a little faster, I've had enough, and the middle east is blowing up

You have no idea

How freakin happy I am right now.

I found Anna.

My crazy, sweet, light's up the room, artist friend, who's Grand-Uncle was David Alfaro Siqueiros.

I've missed her. I can't wait to see her .
Her paintings are wonderful.

Interested in her work?

Contact her here: annasiqueiros AT sbcglobal DOT net

reading now

As I imagine the dialogue

"Dad, I wanna be a big baseball guy when I grow up."

"Son, it's not what you were born to do."




"Bbbbbbuuut Daaaaaaaaaaaad."



"Just keep moving son."

"Son.......SON..........Hey Stupid, move your butt!!!!"

Lovely

16 Saudis transferred home from Guantanamo

(AP) - RIYADH, Saudi Arabia-Sixteen Saudis transferred from the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay arrived home Monday and were immediately detained by authorities investigating possible terrorist connections, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

A total of 77 Saudis have now been returned from Guantanamo, Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki told SPA. He said 53 remain incarcerated at the U.S. military facility in Cuba, a source of tension in U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Washington. Al-Turki's figures correspond to those maintained independently by The Associated Press.

Arabs pile into Darfur to take land 'cleansed' by janjaweed
By Steve Bloomfield, Africa Correspondent Published: 14 July 2007

...Drought in parts of northern Africa has forced nomads to look further afield for fertile land. Although the spread of desert is rapidly reducing the amount of land available for farmers and nomads in Darfur, much of the area cleared by the janjaweed and government forces is fertile...

Egypt faces clean water crisis
By Farid Barsoum in the Nile Delta, Egypt


Timeline: The Frightening Future of Earth
By Andrea Thompson, and Ker Than
Republished from Live Science
In the next 200 years humans will face widespread water shortages, famine and disease; whilst Earth’s landscape transforms radically

Last Rites in the Holy Land?
The world's most ancient Christian communities are fleeing their birthplace.
By Rod Nordland
Newsweek
July 23, 2007 issue -

Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism and the spread of Sunni theofascism - Part 1
By Curtin Winsor

Are Muslims Under Siege?
Sunday, 15, July, 2007 (29, Jumada al-Thani, 1428)
M.J. Akbar, mjakbar@asianage.com
...Do we blame Hinduism or Hindus for the malevolence of those who killed and terrorized Muslims in Gujarat five years ago? We do not, and must not. Is there any reason why Muslims converge so easily into a category?...

Ummmm...

The Gujarat violence broke out in February 2002 when a Muslim mob torched a train carrying Hindu pilgrims and activists, killing nearly 60 Hindus . The incident sparked weeks of reprisals, including arson and murder by Hindu mobs that killed more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.

Saudis....

more balls than brains.

Lawmaker: Jail Women Who Wear Burqa
Friday July 13, 2007 4:01 AM

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - A right-wing Dutch lawmaker wants women jailed for wearing the head-to-toe Islamic robe known as a burqa, calling it a ``symbol of oppression.''

Ummmm, I think going to jail for wearing the niquab, or burka is a bit extreme, but I think they are a security hazard. On the other hand, it was a man who killed Theo Van Gogh for insulting Islam.

Conrad and His Media Comrades

Published on Sunday, July 15, 2007
by CommonDreams.org
They Are Not Just Stealing from Media Companies But Stealing the Media From Us
by Danny Schechter


Internet radio firms hear a sour note from appeals court
Federal panel rejects request to stay royalty rate increase for music webcasters
Linda Rosencrance

July 12, 2007 (Computerworld) -- A federal appeals court yesterday denied a petition from music webcaster associations for an emergency stay of new royalty rates that Internet radio companies have to start paying on Sunday. (Today)

How timely was this?

Last night I watched Bill Moyers' Journal.

It was a fascinating discussion,mostly about this administration's acting as if they are all above the law. Impeachment was mentioned. The Constitution was mentioned. Moyers, Fein and Nichols carried on quite an interesting exchange. It was energizing.

This morning I picked up the book I've been reading and eventually came across this passage on page 360:
Many other "minor" innovations in the Constitution--the difficult yet workable procedure for amending it, impeachment, the the requirement that the Senate concur on presidential appointments, a narrow definition of treason, the power sharing by states that has allowed territories to organize a new states---help explain its success. It is now the world's oldest written constitutions still in effect. All this is the "what" of the Constitution, and Americans need to be reminded of it because many do not understand it. Diane Skvarla, curator for the Senate, says many visitors to the Capitol have no understanding even of the three branches of government and are forever asking "Where is the president's office?" and "What does Congress do?" Their visit to Independence Hall won't help.


After reading this book and two other books by Loewen, I have no desire to see (white) small town America (North and South) or to visit any of the glorified plantations that won't inform visitors that they (and this country) were built on slavery.
I do want to know more about the Constitution though.

Peak Oil vs. Industry Study

"Peak oil" advocates blast U.S. industry study

Fri Jul 13, 2007 2:06PM EDT

By Chris Baltimore

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Proponents of "peak oil" -- the theory that global crude oil production has hit its zenith and is headed for a steep decline -- are steamed with a U.S. oil industry group's findings that the world has plenty of oil.

Next week the U.S. National Petroleum Council -- a board of high-level U.S. oil industry executives -- releases its study titled "Facing the Hard Truths about Energy," conducted at the behest of Energy Secretary Sam Bodman.

According to the report's executive summary obtained by Reuters, the world is not running out of oil but there are "accumulating risks" to securing supply through 2030.

Peak oil theorists say such findings gloss over Bodman's request to study the issue in detail.

"They've labored mightily and come up with a mouse," said Randy Udall at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, whose group dismisses the report as "petro Prozac."

"Give me four college students and two weeks, and I could do better," Udall said.

With crude oil futures prices in London at 11-month highs above $77 a barrel, the International Energy Agency, adviser to 26 industrialized countries, predicts a supply crunch in 2012.

The IEA now expects global demand to reach 95.8 million barrels per day (bpd) from 86.1 million bpd in 2007, assuming average global GDP growth of 4.5 percent annually.

In a draft letter to Bodman outlining its findings, the National Petroleum Council says, "The world is not running out of energy resources, but there are accumulating risks to continuing expansion of oil and natural gas production from the conventional sources relied upon historically."

Those risks include "political hurdles, infrastructure requirements and availability of trained work force," according to the findings of the panel, which includes executives of oil companies like ExxonMobil Corp. and Chevron Corp.

The council, chaired by former ExxonMobil Chief Executive Lee Raymond, could not be reached for comment.

CHICKEN LITTLE

There is no shortage of rhetoric in the debate.

One U.S. oil executive hires people to don chicken suits and hand out flyers at peak oil conferences, calling its advocates "Chicken Littles" - most recently in Italy in 2006.

"The abundance side of the debate needs something that grabs attention too," said Alex Cranberg, chairman of Denver-based Aspect Energy LLC, an independent oil company, referring to the chicken suits. "It is almost equal to, but not equal to, the power of fear."

Daniel Yergin, chairman of oil consultancy Cambridge Energy Research Associates and the panel's vice chairman of demand issues, has dismissed the idea of peak oil.

(That would be this Daniel Yergin )

Instead, Yergin's group has predicted an "undulating plateau" of crude oil production over several decades, followed by a slow decline.

Such findings irk Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, the Maryland Republican and co-chairman of the Congressional peak oil caucus, who has hounded the Bush administration on the peak oil issue.

"I don't think (the council) did what they asked them to do," Bartlett said in his office this week, brandishing a closet-full of charts and graphs that map out various world oil consumption scenarios. "We're disappointed."

Big Telecom stifles innovation

See how here: "Free the iPhone"

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sick of getting screwed by Big Telecom.

Go here BEFORE MONDAY JULY 16, 2007 to take action.


Verizon Asks Congress to Just Say No to ‘Open Access’
From ars technica, July 13, 2007
By Nate Anderson

BuckFush does it again!

Stupid men

In China.

In India.

And in the US male domination can be destructive.

How about let's try something different?

We, women of many nations, cultures and creeds, of different colours and classes, have come together to voice our concern for the health of our living planet and all its interdependent life forms.

New Fox show: ‘Can women effectively rule society?’

Fox is planning a new show this fall called “When Women Rule The World.” From the description:

Aaaahhhh, yes, from the people who brought you "fair and balanced."

Let's see how the editing works out on this show, eh?

# 1 double shot

#2 two double shot

Hot dayum, I love John Hiatt, ah-ite?

Population Growth

After a “lost decade,” experts call for renewed focus on population growth
July 1st, 2007

Major growth spurt to hit S.J.
County projected to grow by 242,000 residents per decade
By Jennifer Torres
Record Staff Writer
July 10, 2007 6:00 AM

My take on the population growth issue is actually pretty simple. As long as the human race is concerned with no more than their family, their tribe, their power--- the ecological disaster looms. Until political leaders actually decide to lead and controlling population growth becomes a priority, the death resulting from population growth will grow also.

...While studying these subjects is important, scientists may never fully resolve an answer to the question of carrying capacity before the earth informs the human population what its carrying capacity is through less than polite means of communication...


So, for those of you religious nutjobs who keep telling people to breed more of whatever brand of religion you are pushing Shut The Fuck Up, you're not helping the human race, you're hurting it.
For those of you dingbatty females who can't wait to squirt out a shitload of brats, or fawn over a crapload of grandkids, come closer, let me bitchslap your dumb ass.

If only the leaders of my country would take that in mind, eh?

Just a tiny portion of the $12 billion a month spent on this ridiculous war might be spent on birth control, education and health care for poor women all over the planet could literally make a world of difference to those (approximately) three-hundred sixty thousand people born on the planet today .

Methinks the waiter is a smartass .

Go laugh, he's funnier than me.

Lil ol me got tagged

Lil ol me got tagged

Question is; are there eight things about me that anyone would care to know – that I am willing to post on a blog that I haven’t already?

1) I know that people are stupid enough to destroy the earth

2)I discovered that I was a liberal while taking business classes.

3) I think I have a pretty good understanding of what my country has become

4) I think people who bring children into this world now are stupid, ignorant, or selfish, because the kids are going to suffer.

5) Greed makes me sick

6) I'm obsessed with the out of control world population.

7) The only fiction series I have enjoyed in the last 5 years is the Plum series.

8) I am proud to say that my family and friends are reproducing at less than replacement level. (My obsession again)

My personal 4th

If you're looking for jingoistic, feel-good happy talk, go visit someone else's blog today.

I finished Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen this morning and immediately started reading Sundown Towns by the same author.

Nine freaking pages into Sundown Towns I came across this:

That evening in Decatur revolutionized my thinking. I now perceived that in the normal course of human events, most and perhaps all towns would not be all-white. Racial exclusion was required. "If they did not have such a policy,"observed an African American resident of Du Quoin, Illinois, about the all-white towns around Du Quoin, "surely blacks would be in them."I came to understand that he was right. "If people of color aren't around,"writes commentator Time Wise, "there's a reason, having something to do with history, and exclusion..." (#16 footnote)

Though mind-boggling to me, this insight proved hardly new. As early as 1858, before the dispersal of African Americans throughout the North prompted by the Civl War, the Wyandotte Herald in Wyandotte, in Southeastern Michigan, stated, "Wyandotte is again without a single colored inhabitant, something remarkable for a city of over 6,000 people." Even then, tThe Herald understood that a city of over 6,000 people as "remarkable"for being all-white. We shall see that a series of riots and threats was required to keep Wyandotte white over the years.

Why would these two paragraphs stand out to me?

Because I wondered about the longer history of Wyandotte, in Southeastern Michigan.


You see, I have Wyandotte blood in me.

On the other hand, being a proud, patriotic (mostly white) American, I can't help but wonder how many Iraq war veterans (that we are sending to make some rich white fucks richer) are going to hit the deck once the fireworks start tonight?

Hmmm, maybe I'll skip the fireworks, they kind of make me jumpy. Maybe I'll go see Michael Moore's Sicko, although I don't really need to, my parents are fighting with their insurance companies all the time.

Happy fucking "Independence Day" folks. At least Scooter Libby has something to celebrate

And here's a nice wrap up for today, even though I missed it a couple of days ago:

San Diego Public Schools Grapple with Muslim Prayer by: Lucas O'Connor
Mon Jul 02, 2007 at 08:44:03 AM PD

Uhhh, Lucas, isn't Hirsi Ali from Somalia?

Let me be clear. Fundamentalist Islam is not something I want invited in to my country, my city, my home. Like any form of fundamentalist religion, I flat out hate the motherfuckers.

Put away the flags

Published on Sunday, July 1, 2007 by The Progressive
by Howard Zinn

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism — that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder — one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking — cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on — have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours — huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction — what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves.

Our citizenry has been brought up to see our nation as different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral, expanding into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty, democracy.

That self-deception started early.

When the first English settlers moved into Indian land in Massachusetts Bay and were resisted, the violence escalated into war with the Pequot Indians. The killing of Indians was seen as approved by God, the taking of land as commanded by the Bible. The Puritans cited one of the Psalms, which says: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy possession.”

When the English set fire to a Pequot village and massacred men, women and children, the Puritan theologian Cotton Mather said: “It was supposed that no less than 600 Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day.”

On the eve of the Mexican War, an American journalist declared it our “Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence.” After the invasion of Mexico began, The New York Herald announced: “We believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country.”
It was always supposedly for benign purposes that our country went towar.

We invaded Cuba in 1898 to liberate the Cubans, and went to war in the Philippines shortly after, as President McKinley put it, “to civilize and Christianize” the Filipino people.

As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict), Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: “The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness.”

We see in Iraq that our soldiers are not different. They have, perhaps against their better nature, killed thousands of Iraq civilians. And some soldiers have shown themselves capable of brutality, of torture.

Yet they are victims, too, of our government’s lies.

How many times have we heard President Bush tell the troops that if they die, if they return without arms or legs, or blinded, it is for “liberty,” for “democracy”?

One of the effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of a sense of proportion. The killing of 2,300 people at Pearl Harbor becomes the justification for killing 240,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 3,000 people on Sept. 11 becomes the justification for killing tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And nationalism is given a special virulence when it is said to be blessed by Providence. Today we have a president, invading two countries in four years, who announced on the campaign trail in 2004 that God speaks through him.

We need to refute the idea that our nation is different from, morally superior to, the other imperial powers of world history.

We need to assert our allegiance to the human race, and not to any one nation.

Howard Zinn, a World War II bombardier, is the author of the best-selling “A People’s History of the United States” (Perennial Classics, 2003, latest edition). This piece was distributed by the Progressive Media Project.
©2007 The Progressive Magazine

What's that giant sucking sound I hear?

Fluor, Dyncorp, KBR win contract
From Times Wire Services
June 29, 2007

Irvine-based Fluor Corp., Dyncorp International Inc. and KBR Inc., a former unit of Halliburton Co., were awarded parts of a U.S. Army contract with a combined potential value of as much as $150 billion to provide services to the military in the Middle East.

The contract, the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) IV, would be worth as much as $5 billion a year in business for each of the companies, with the potential duration of 10 years.

The Army said the contract was parceled out to three companies rather than just one to "more effectively manage the number and scope of LOGCAP actions required to fight the global war on terror."


Fluor Corp.

DynCorp in Colombia: Outsourcing the Drug War
by Jeremy Bigwood, Special to CorpWatch
May 23rd, 2001

Oh, that giant sucking sound.

That's just the sound of military-industrial-congressional-complex bankrupting the next few generations, Yeesh, you'd think that I'd never heard that before.

'?????

Was anyone else harrassed by a reich-wing military blogger in 2003?

I told you I wanted books, right?

(click on pics for info)




Umm yeah, moderation has never really been my strong point. Gonna go read now.

PADD

Political Attention Deficit Disorder – New Psychiatric Condition

Humor
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
06/27/07 "ICH" -- - -According to a report not yet released, the Council on Science and Public Health of the American Medical Association has recommended that a chronic and widespread affliction of Americans be officially declared a psychiatric disorder. It has been named the Political Attention Deficit Disorder (PADD). It is recommended that the disorder be included in a widely used mental illness manual created and published by the American Psychiatric Association. The current manual was published in 1994; the next edition is to be completed in 2012. The benefit to people of an official classification is coverage by health insurance.

Mmmm, hmmm, I got another one for the DSM V


L.I.P.

Lobbyist Induced Pshychosis.

Characterized by "glazed donut eyes", while lost in fantasies of slitting the throat thereby cutting off the annoying mosqito buzzing of the corporate lobbyist seated in front of afflicted politician.

Treatment usually involves cash, alcohol, cars, planes, prostitutes and pork barrell projects.

suprise suprise

Senate hands Bush major defeat on immigration

By Donna Smith
Reuters
Thursday, June 28, 2007; 12:52 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate delivered an apparently fatal blow on Thursday to President George W. Bush's planned immigration overhaul and dashed the hopes of millions of immigrants seeking legal status.