Gaza blackout

Update: Israel to ease blockade of Gaza
Last Updated: Monday, 21 January 2008, 20:20 GMT

Israel Keeps up raids despite blackouts.

[Reuters]

Gaza City has been plunged into darkness after its only power plant was shut down on the third day of a crippling Israeli fuel blockade of the Palestinian territory

We pay for this shit you know. You think this grinning idiot would have a chance in hell entering national politics if he didn't suck up to the Israel lobby?

Dude, where's my voting machine software?

Election Software Lost in Transit
By Kim Zetter
December 20, 2007

...In San Diego County, one of the empty tubes arrived with no lid on the end of it to close the tube; the second tube had a lid, but it was loosely taped shut....

...The chips contained firmware to run the optical-scan equipment that San Diego uses in its central counting office.


The title of this article made me laugh out loud:

Electronic voting will greatly enhance democracy in Kenya
COMMENTARY
Story by ANDREW LIMO Digital World
PubPublication Date: 1/18/2008

(they must be pushing Diebold electronic voting machines in this "commentary")

... Brazil introduced electronic voting in 1996 where about 110 million voters used the computer to elect leaders — from mayors to the president.


Signs in Kenya That Killings Were Planned
Violence continued in Kenya, where on Sunday the police and residents tried to quell a fire set in the Mathare slum in Nairobi.
by JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: January 21, 2008

A Superior Court Judge has issued a tentative ruling against the County of San Diego in its suit, challenging the Secretary of State.

Ummmm, yeah, here's another laughable article title:

New rules will bring security to ballot box
By Tom Elias
Article Launched: 01/20/2008 07:45:59 PM PST

Why is it laughable?

...Sen. Hillary Clinton ran far stronger in counties where votes were counted on Diebold Accuvote optical scan machines than where paper ballots were counted by hand...

Do you have any idea who you're watching?

Chrystia Freeland needs her snotty, pompous, elitist ass kicked.

Can you just imagine her creaming her lacy panties over McCain's claiming he is the successor to Maggie Thatcher? Bet those panties looked great under that prep school. cheerleading uniform

What is that, a stage name?

I'm bloody sick of the asspress shoving McCain & Hillary at us.

The financial sector knows damn well that that those ho's is open for bidness and that's why they are pushing that horesrace.

Well, Freeland is the darling of the investor's press.

She's supposed to be some expert on Russia.

She should know better than this, after all she wrote this:

Sale of the Century.

Make sure you look at the reviews, the sources of them, and the lack of substance are revealing.

This mess started with Friedman and his Chicago Boys. Nobody wants Americans to know that the "diplomatic difficulties" that we are experiencing with Russia have anything to do with American based organizations, and multinational corporations based in the US, raping and pillaging Russia. Looks like the bastard lived to see revenge done on the family oppressors.
Maybe.

Hmmmm. According to my textbook the meltdown that resulted in the looting and pillage of Russia can be attributed to the fact that:

"In many cases, workers acquired 49 percent of the stock in their company, while the former government managers received 51 percent and effective control. The vouchers given to the general public could later be traded for company stock. While millions of Russians did trade at least a part of their vouchers for stocks, the majority did not. Having lived their lives under communism, most had no understanding of the potential value of their vouchers and they willingly sold them to speculators for a small reaction of their potential worth. Armed with these vouchers and ties to the Kremlin, and aided by healthy bribes, these budding entrepreneurs were able to purchase state firms at perhaps 10 percent of their real value, thereby emerging as a new class of super tycoons generally known as the oligarchs."

Ummm, yeah, privatization, which generally involves downsizing, shuts down factories and people lose their jobs. These people (who up until this time had no reason to understand the stock market anyway) were hungry.

Wake up, little Chrystia, all will not end well, no matter who's buttering your bread.

Or providing milk for your cereal.

Here's the antidote to corporate media and sister Chrystia's mindlessness

Citizens Bank customer service sucks syphilitic dick

They can stay out of San Diego.

Pregnant Marine never feared colleague wanted in her dead
Associated Press - January 16, 2008 12:03 AM ET

ehhh whut?

Who checks the web postings at this newz station?

Bushwhacker blood

Jenna Bush Planning May 10 Wedding
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 16, 2008 06:45 PM EST
By David Caplan and Sandra Sobieraj-Westfall

Eeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwww.
That means it's going to start breeding.
Just what we need, more Bushwhacker blood.

You think the caterers will accept Saudi rials?

Hmmmm, how's daddy's war going?

What's that you say, Iraqi's are growing opium poppies to survive , hhhhm, where have we seen that before?

Mmm, and before that?

Opium has long history of beng used by Empires, actually.

Well, there's a presidential election coming up, howz'bout the American people elect a president who cares more about them than profits, eh?


Study: John Edwards Doesn't Exist
January 16, 2008 -- 5:31 PM EST // //
A new study finds that John Edwards doesn't exist.

Allow me to explain.

After John Edwards placed second in the Iowa caucus on January 3, Elizabeth Edwards took to the airwaves to argue that his finish should occasion the media to stop covering the Dem contest as little more than a showdown between two political superstars, Hillary and Obama. Not surprisingly, nobody listened to her.


Dennis?

McCain?

China Tightens Controls on Food Prices

By JOE McDONALD AP Business Writer
BEIJING (AP) - China took its most drastic step yet on Wednesday to slow a rapid rise in politically sensitive food prices, ordering producers to obtain government approval for any further increases....

Also Wednesday, the government said a crackdown on illegal pricing has cut the cost of liquefied natural gas in China by up to 19 percent. LNG is widely used in China for cooking.Investigators found LNG producers and retailers colluded to raise prices or violated government price controls, the NDRC said.

Gas producers are the second industry hit by price-fixing claims after the NDRC said in August that noodle makers illegally colluded to push up retail prices by up to 40 percent.
2008-01-16 12:17:07 GMT

So China need natural gas for cooking.

Iran has natural gas

China has shitloads of US Treasury bonds .

So China can tell the US to buzz off.

Unless US and Chinese reps want to get together for photo-ops.

Come oooon, anybody believe that Negroponte gives two shits about human rights?

Ok now go laugh, this is funny.

Bush Exempts Navy From Environmental Law

(click on pic for C&L "Die, Whales Die!!!" post.)
Bush Exempts Navy From Environmental Law
PAULINE JELINEK | January 16, 2008 01:50 PM EST | AP

WASHINGTON — President Bush exempted the Navy from an environmental law so it can continue using sonar in its anti-submarine warfare training off the California coast _ a practice critics say is harmful to whales and other marine mammals.

How many times have I posted on this?

How many more days do we have to deal with this asshole? I knew he would get his way in less than six months, and the spoiled rotten fucktard piece of shit did.

Yes, I did just call the president of the US a FUCKTARD PIECE OF SHIT. We will have to deal with the world-wide devastation of this administration, stemming from the absolute fanatical worship at the altar of the "free market," for the rest of our lives, our kids lives, and if the planet can still sustain lives, our great great grand children's lives.

You don't get the connection between allowing the military to train and the "free market" neocon fucktards?

Cubby Holes.

You think the federal dollars are heading to San Diego study the health of the ocean?

Or to the military-industrial-congressional-complex?

Which WILL protect the profits of the privatization warriors.

Fuckers are making money on both sides of the "war on terra."

Upper management seems to think that they are playing with toy soldiers.

Not human beings.

Disenfranchising Kucinich

NBC Fights to Keep Kucinich Out of Debate

Are you FUCKing kidding me?

( JP isn't happy about this either)

So according to Randi Rhodes (yeah, you know, that liberal woman who tells the truth and does her homework, that I have to stream from other cities because my city is full of greedy RepugnantThuglican chickenshit assholes? ) Kucinich was invited by NBC, then DIS invited, then he sued NBC to be allowed into the debate.

Randi's also talking about how to vote in Michigan today and make sure your vote is counted. If you write anything in, your ballot will be tossed.

Empty Dem primary upsets voters

By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN
The Associated Press
January 13. 2008 12:41AM

For Michigan voters, the state's early primary is either an exciting contest to pick the candidate who may be the eventual Republican nominee or an unsatisfying choice between Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and "Uncommitted."
Republican leaders are ecstatic, while Democratic leaders are trying to put the best spin on a process that has left many Democratic voters disgruntled, since Barack Obama and John Edwards have pulled their names off the ballot.


So how's voting going in Michigan today?

Primaries and Caucuses (link to dates)

Update The Fishwrap pees it's pants in excitement over Kucinich's inability to participate in debate

Horse race

I tried to explain it here , but I didn't use the word horse race.

I'm sick of the media and their sloppy, sensationalist coverage of political campaigns as if they were a horse race. I'm sick of seeing only those candidates who can pay for advertising and take huge amounts of money from corporate America.

Editor and Publisher has a great OpEd on the history of this phenomenon:

When 'Mad Men' In Media Took Control of Political Campaigns

Upton Sinclair is back, thanks to 'There Will Be Blood' movie ties. But in 1934 his race for governor gave birth to the modern media-based political campaign.
By Greg Mitchell
NEW YORK (January 11, 2008) --

Are we frightened and angry enough to be this ugly again?

Readers Say No to Polls, Illegal Immigrants (WaPo dot.comments, Doug Feaver)
Our Readers Who Comment today make two things very clear:
1) They don't trust polls.
2) They are angry about illegal immigration.

Fed official metes mortgage meltdown blame
St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President, William Poole, says housing woes were caused by familiar mistakes.

Oakland City Attorney Announces Predatory Lending Fight
By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor (10-19-07)

...foreclosures in Oakland...—a heavily African-American and Latino area represented by Reid—having the highest foreclosure rate in the city, at 14.9 foreclosures per 1,000 homes.

The fact sheet said that citizens of color were most likely to be victims of predatory lending practices, with African-American and Latino homebuyers 3.8 times more likely to have received a high-cost loan than whites, and neighborhoods of color 23.6 times more likely to get higher-cost refinance loans than white neighborhoods....

Some stories hard to get in history books
Updated 4/5/2006 1:36 AM
By Kasie Hunt, USA TODAY

Most high school students in the USA probably don't know that tens of thousands of Mexican-Americans — many of them legal residents or even U.S. citizens — were forcibly sent to Mexico during the depths of the Depression. That's because few history books even mention it.

Related story: U.S. urged to apologize for deportations

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

I'm still reading the Shock Doctrine ( here is a somewhat strange review of the book ) and comparing it to the textbook for the Political Science class that I just finished. I am disgusted that the chapters in the textbook that deal with Russia, China, Mexico, Developing Nations, and sections on terrorism are so glaringly incomplete. They automatically steer the reader (generally students in their twenties) towards accepting the political unrest in those places without understanding it. Divorcing the unrest from the forced economic policies that create it does the students a disservice. Something tells me that the schools using these crappy textbooks are not going to have administrators who would enable the professors to encourage their students to ALSO read Klein's Shock Doctrine.

Milton Friedman is referenced in the textbook twice, in a positive way. The IMF and World Bank are referenced in the index twice, once hilariously to the page on International Terrorism, but absent on that page. At least they mentioned that Agusto Pinochet was led by US trained economists, and Friedman hailed the Chilean economic system as "one of the world's purest capitalist systems." No mention of how that fabulously pure system needed the brutality of Pinochet's regime to become so fabulously pure and hailed as such.

Hmmmm.

Why do I have to read a book by a Canadian author to find out just how much power two institutions based in the United States have?


This says something about our education system and the corporations that seem to have an inordinate amount of control over what is taught in it, despite that fact that they pay less and less taxes to fund it.

Why Obama's message of hope resonates

Dudes.

If Obama wins the primaries and then the Presidency, I got me a few clues as to why.

We, as Americans need some hope and some redemption.

You see, our sane friends have about given up on us.

We got totally loopy friends left.

But are they our friends?

And where does the animosity in the region come from?

We fried the fuck out of our military.


The whole country (Well, a minimum of 70% anyway) is looking at the idiot president and his party of greed, selfishness, homophobia, pedophilia, hypocrisy, and warmongering and they want these liars, cheats, and thieves gone.

Fuck 'em, we've had enough , kick their asses to the curb, please.

I hope my government doesn't get in the way of my voting in a new adminsitration, but I think they will, at least locally.

So does it really matter who Obama is? (Or isn't? )

Yes.

Yes it does.

Damn, just click on the last 2 & find out what you can about the man, I did your freaking homework for you, yeeesh. Gotta admit, though, the guy gives great speech doesn't he?

Badtux the Snarky Penguin made me think of this

The teevee shows tonight

The Latino Vote 2008
Week of 1.11.08 (NOW)

(Bill Moyer's Journal)
Margins of Error: Poll Reading Tips
Shelby Steele on Race in America

(I like this lady, she's fair)
Kathleen Hall Jamieson LOOKS BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Indonesia's abortion victims (click here for article)

I am not "pro-abortion" but I AM pro-choice. If you are female and you don't want an abortion Don't Have One. Have the kid and take care of it yourself, or take care of it with a man who also chooses to have a child with you. How simple is that?

If you're a man shut the fuck up, sit down and fucking listen. It's not your body. Got that? It's not your choice. With a booming global population and a not so booming global labor movement, it's a fabulous time for a rich capitalist to work you, your wife and your children right into an early grave. The fact that women are forced to squirt out ten kids because some men are selfish pigs who think they can demand sex any time THEY want it is reprehensible. Thirty seconds of pleasure can create lifetimes of misery. Men have no business telling women on this planet at this time that they must breed. The population has doubled in my lifetime.There are three times as many people on the planet now as is possible to live on the planet comfortably and sustainably. Great for the asinine economists who think that never ending growth is possible. Not so great for the poor and the disenfranchised.

Local and national Diebold crap

Security Concerns Sideline Electronic Voting Machines
POSTED: 9:54 pm PST January 7, 2008
UPDATED: 9:58 pm PST January 7, 2008

San Diego Voters Confront Board of Supervisors
January 10, 2008
Diary Entry by Mark E. Smith

First they buy hackable voting machines against our advice, and now they're suing the Secretary of State for trying to make them more secure.Our Registrar of Voters (ROV) is a former Diebold salesperson, Deborah Seilor, and our Assistant ROV is Michael Vu who, when his elections officials were videotaped rigging a recount, said that he didn't think they'd done anything wrong. Vu was hired by Walter Eckard, the County Executive Officer, who was appointed by an all-Republican Board of Supervisors who have been in power for more than 12 years. The very last thing they want is honest elections. So I posted a link to the video of this morning's Board of Supervisors meeting, where some citizens stood up and confronted the Board.

http://www.care2.com/news/member/101933861/596126/ppClick

Click on "visit site" and then use the times I've noted to see the public comments without having to watch the whole meeting.


Columnist: Was There Electoral Fraud in New Hampshire?
By E&P Staff
Published: January 10, 2008 11:40 AM ET

Update 4:29 PM 1/10/2008 watch Olbermann.

Today this blog is two years old. OK then.

You think you got Home Depot parking lots clogged with illegal Mexican immigrants now?

HAH.

Just wait till the next batch of NAFTA refugees makes it across the border.

If you're gonna bust the pastor with child porn

For God's sake get a warrant, you idiot.

Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008
Pastor Wins Battle Over Porn Taken From Office Computer

politics

You'd think that when I chose the name politickybitch for this blog that I would devote a majority of posts to politics. That's losing it's charm, & frankly the people on my blogroll cover politics
better than I do. I look at the sixteen candidates that the corporations and the corporate media are quickly whittling down to two that they can "do bidness wid" and I'm more determined than ever to give the finger to the corporate whores and vote for the candidate who makes sense to me.

Take this quiz to find your candidate

Or take this one

The corporate newz sucks, so I go elsewhere. The movie reviews suck, so I get my opinions on those elsewhere also:


Thank heavens, then, that Chalmers Johnson, whose magisterial book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (the final volume of his Blowback Trilogy) will be appearing in paperback this month, puts a little history back into Charlie Wilson's War in his own inimitable manner. Tom

Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, An Imperialist Comedy


(The Blowback trilogy is well worth reading.)

Domestic violence

Seems to be today's topic. My humble little blog was visited by Ellen Sheeley, the author of
Reclaiming Honor in Jordan: A National Public Opinion Survey on "Honor" Killings . Thank you kindly Ms. Sheeley.I'm still reading Naomi Klein's the Shock Doctrine which is chock full of horrific stories of violence perpetrated on peoples in order to implement brutal economic systems.

There has been quite a lively discussion over at JP's Welcome to Pottersville . Someone left a long winded comment about women not being the perps in most cases of violence, including wars and genocide. There are exceptions. Memories of girls that I knew as a teenager and young adult came flooding back as I read "8 ball chicks" by Gini Sikes. The girls I knew were victims and perps. It goes like that. For reals.




I myself have been a victim of domestic violence AND a perp. My experience has been that being a perpetrator of domestic violence was much more frightening than being a victim of it. Breaking the cycle of domestic violence is difficult to say the least, but worth the work involved.

Try here, or contact the national domestic violence hotline

Wimmins be thinkin too much

You want to know why population issues are so important to me?

By Brad Arnold:
Bush

Populations tend to increase at a geometrical rate, whereas the means of subsistence increases at just an arithmetical rate. Without the checks of disease, famine, and war, human populations will double their size every 25 years. (An idea advanced by Thomas Robert Malthus)

The world’s population reached 1 billion for the first time in 1830. It took 120 years to double to 2 billion, and just 30 years to reach 3 billion. The world’s
population is now over 6 billion people.

Our increased means of subsistence is due to technology and a climate favorable for agriculture. Modern medicine, industrialized farming, and use of fossil fuel have reduced disease and famine. Furthermore, we’ve enjoyed an exceptionally mild climate period called the Holocene.

go read the rest


This is totally unrelated, but why is the EPA in bed with car dealers, and useless as teats on a boar in California?

Up and down week

I watched Ron Paul and Kennis Kucinich on Bill Moyers Journal and I smiled. I smiled again when I thought that my loved ones, who happen to have this thing for going to the hospital this week, are going to be ok.

Then I was horrified by a story that might be an honour killing in Texas.

What a waste. These girls were brilliant and beautiful.

Then I remembered that Texas leads the US in executions.

Heh.

Obama, Huckabee score victories in Iowa

Wins give momentum in next week's New Hampshire vote
Sheldon Alberts, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, January 03, 2008

Hmmmm. I wish I could get more excited about this. I'm distracted by voter rolls being purged of "dead wood" in San Diego .

TV cuts candidates from debates, angering Paul backers

Fox News says it has limited space in its studio, which leaves Rep. Ron Paul out of a weekend debate.

The roster of participants for ABC's back-to-back, prime-time Republican and Democratic debates Saturday in New Hampshire will be determined after results of Thursday's Iowa caucus become clear.

Fox, meanwhile, has invited five GOP candidates to a forum with Chris Wallace scheduled for its mobile studio in New Hampshire on Sunday. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee received invites, leaving Paul of Texas and Rep. Duncan Hunter of California on the sidelines.

I'm not a Ron Paul fan, but I see what's going on. Is that going to stop me from voting in the primaries? Nope.

Dickheads of the Year

My picks for the biggest assholes of 2007 by Bill Maher (click on title link)

Mr. Maher mentions this guy second




& I found some local dickheads:

Least efficient executives based on decline in stock price
from
San Diego's Highest Paid Executives

Here are San Diego's biggest stories of 2007.

I'm glad this year is over. It sucked.

Moving on. I have been a bit curious about the movie "Charlie Wilson's War" & I guess I was waiting for Larry to blog about it. My wait is over and he says about what I expected him to. This is my favorite quote:

...The movie also tries to gloss over the fact that the United States was funding some of the mujahideen–Haqqani and Hekmatayar in particular–that we are now fighting in Afghanistan....

I became disenchanted with Julia Roberts anyway when I found out she was Donald Rumsfeld's neighbor. I'm sure her bank account won't suffer without my ten measly bucks.


Eco Friendly at the 100 year anniversary.

Hey, didn't it use to snow in New York?

Kidney stone

My husband passed a kidney stone this weekend in the hospital. Friday night in any ER is a nightmare and I'm glad he was able to drive himself. They sprung him this morning. They didn't catch it so we don't what kind it was.

(Wikipedia : Often described as the "worst pain ever felt")

He came back and said *sigh* "I gotta change my diet." I looked at him and I just couldn't resist saying "Well, I hate to say I told you so, but let's just get this over with...."

He laughed.

Go. Read. This (click right here)

Just tripping around my blogtopia (yes, skippy coined that phrase) landed me on yet another Assclowns of the Week. A stupendous one, thanks for that JP.

(I'm still LMAO)...

Oh. My. God.

Make sure you take JP's advice and go HERE to see The BEAST 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2007

...ROFL

Bhutto assasination

It's everywhere.

The Benazir Bhutto assassination and fallout story is everywhere.

Was It Al Qaeda?

Was it Musharraf?

Was it the Taliban?

Will Pakistan explode into violence?

Will the violence spread? After all, the Indo-Pak dialogue on Kashmir is sham

THE DEATH OF BENAZIR: COMES THE WHIRLWIND
Fri Dec 28, 6:09 PM ET

I haven't said anything because I'm intentionally uninformed about the history of the country. I'm learning, yeesh, what a train wreck. I wonder if it's intentionally underdeveloped, like
most of Africa? (although I don't believe in reparations, there are just too many people on the planet to worry about the past, it's the future that I'm worried about, duh!)

Lousy haircut

My hair is hard to cut. It can't be too long, or too short and it needs to be easy to deal with. I'm not one of those women who wants to spend three hours primping. I don't use hairspray, sculpting gel, spiking gel, hair grease, curling irons or even blow dryers for that matter. I don't like crunchy, fried, dried out, or greasy hair, and a halfway decent haircut means I don't have that kind of hair. I can usually get one for less than $20, although I really miss the $75 ones. This one guy was great but he went to teach at some brand name hair school in San Francisco. Not your everyday beauty school, this place. Fucking awesome haircuts, he should be teaching.

Occasionally I get a haircut so bad that it requires some primping but this is fucking ridiculous. I need a hat, or to get my kid to take the buzz clipper to it. I hate hats, and I'm too old to get a buzz clip without looking like a bull dyke (not that I have a problem with them, I'm just not one, and I don't want to look like one). This cut sucks and I'm pissed.

This woman said she cut hair in Tehran for 6 years. Are you fucking kidding me? It's a damn good thing the women have to wear hijab there. Hey maybe it's safe to take them off now that this woman is out of the city. No, never mind, the religious police gotta love this woman.

"Hey guys, you can have her back, you won't see any hair peeping out after one of this woman's cuts, she should make your jobs really easy."

How did this bitch get her license here? She had the balls to tell me when I tried to get her to fix it that it was perfect. I think she was bound and determined to leave a mess and she did.

There was something funny about her eyes and mannerisms too. I've seen that look before. That hard, numb, 'seen too much' look.