Channel surfing the inauguration

I thought:

"If I hear one more teevee pundit fawn over something grand that Ronald Reagan said I'm gonna puke!"

Then I thought "It's exciting to have two little girls in the White House."

Are these girls cute or what?



We Win!: The Inaugural Celebration Caps a Victory in the Political Cultural War
Mojo blog (Mother Jones)

...Before hopping on that train, Obama proclaimed, "People who love this country can change it."

That is the opposite of the old slogan used by the right when the political culture war began: "America, love it or leave it." No, the protesters of that time countered, America, make it better...

(gay Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson says some really great stuff in the embedded link)

Obama Inauguration Celebrities: The List

hat tip to skippy

Israel continues hanging itself

Israel to keep tight grip on Gaza reconstruction
Mon Jan 19, 2009 10:45am EST

I forced myself to read the articles linked to this one yesterday. I was bleary eyed by nightfall. I was sad also, that democracies like the US and Israel have become as ugly in their behavior as the ugliest, most vicious dictatorships.

I'm not sure that whoever is running PR for Israel knows that it's impossible to control the message these days. There's just too much technology available for very little money. The real story is going to leak out.

Watching HBO webcam on the mall in DC, listening to the speeches.

I was there

Just not for this show.

Reading

I'm still slogging through "The Way of the World" by Ron Suskind. I'm only half-way through it.

Israel and Palestine, quit sucking the whole world into your sandbox filled with quicksand

* Israel announces unilateral ceasefire

Nonetheless, rockets landed in Israel even minutes before he spoke and Hamas leaders said they would continue to fight for an end to Israel's closure of much of Gaza's trade and a withdrawal of the Israeli forces from their territory.


Religion Sucks.

Hmmm, just as I posted that, iTunes decided I needed to be listening to Rage Against The Machine: Settle For Nothing

"...a world of violent rage, but it's one that I can recognize..."

Power Struggle

Week of 1.16.09

This guy says the CPUC keeps SDG&E in line.

Yeah right, was he with the company when we got fucked by Enron ?

Where the fuck was the CPUC then?

Because I love this video and my friend is visiting me today

Gotta smile and laugh sometimes, eh?

Umm, and dance :)

Update 2:24 PM 1/16/2009 the video makes me smile, and this headline cracked me up. UPS Delivers 30-Pound Marijuana Brick To Wrong Address January 15, 2009 03:56 PM EST

UPS name change to OOPS is in order perhaps?

Frontline, Dreams of Obama

watching online now, and reading this, and my glasses still suck. I'm getting my eyes re-examined next week to see what the problem is since I just paid 500 bucks for a pair of glasses, (and the frames were cheap and ugly) and can't fucking drive with them on. Yeesh, this getting older stuff sucks.

Ho-leeee crap, we know wer'e in deep shit when Google lays off people.

And speaking of holy crap, this is too much. You just don't shell the UN. I've been trying to avoid the Gaza mess because frankly, I'm starting to hate both side of that fucking mess. Mostly because they suck the whole world into their mess and I'm sick of it.

Shelling the UN is bullshit and this is bullshit:

French Muslim Soldiers Refuse Afghanistan Mission
Thursday January 15th, 2009 / 11h32

hat tip to Islam in Europe

Religion sucks #16

and ties up the courts in stupid ways.

By LINDA COADY, ESQ., Andrews Publications Staff Writer

A federal appeals court has ruled that DNA sampling does not violate an evangelical Christian prisoner's religious rights under the U.S. Constitution or federal law...

...Kaemmerling was convicted of conspiring to commit wire fraud, a felony offense, and is serving time in a federal prison in Texas...

...Even if Kaemmerling had alleged a substantial burden on his exercise of religion, the panel said, his complaint still would fail to state a claim for relief because the burden is "in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest," that is, preventing and solving crimes...

This idiot is an evangelical Christian from Texas.

'nuff said.

Bradblog reader, cracks me up :)

The following email invitation arrived today, from reader "Karen"...
Blogged by Brad Friedman on 1/10/2009 12:07PM
Invitation to Pre-Inauguration Opening of The George W. Bush Presidential Library...


Missed this a couple of days ago, it's funny thanks "Karen."

In Foreign Policy, a New Trio at the Top

With Hearing Today, Clinton, Kerry and Obama Begin to Realign Their Roles

By Anne E. Kornblut and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 13, 2009; A01

FACTBOX- Quotes from Hillary Clinton confirmation hearing
Tue Jan 13, 2009 9:29pm GMT

Here are some of her quotes on key topics:

IRAN

"We will pursue a new, perhaps different approach. What we have tried has not worked.

"No option is off the table."

"We will do everything we can pursue through diplomacy, through the use of sanctions, through creating better coalitions with countries that we believe also have a big stake in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear weapon power."

"We have no illusions, Mr. Chairman, that even with a new administration looking to try to engage Iran in a way that might influence its behaviour, that we can predict the results. But the president-elect is committed to that course and we will pursue it."

Obama team takes new tack on Iran amid Mideast peace push
2 hours ago

The outgoing administration of President George W. Bush refused to engage in direct negotiations with Iran unless it first stops enriching uranium, material which Washington fears could be used to build an atomic bomb.

"The incoming administration views with great concern ... Iran's sponsorship of terrorism, its continuing interference with the functioning of other governments, and its pursuit of nuclear weapons," she said.

Along with Syria, Iran backs the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip -- which is being pounded by the Israeli army in an 18-day military offensive -- as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, which fought a similar war with Israel in 2006.

Washington also accuses Iran of meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan...

...She called for a "strategy of smart power in the Middle East that addresses the security needs of Israel and the legitimate political and economic aspirations of the Palestinians."

Clinton hoped it "effectively challenges Iran to end its nuclear weapons program and its sponsorship of terror."

She said the new strategy also could "persuade both Iran and Syria to abandon their dangerous behavior and become constructive regional actors."

politickybitch sez The Palestinian/Israeli football game that sucks the whole world in to play is mighty tiresome.

Mighty tiresome.

John Cusack asks two questions

MMMMhmm, what I would pay attention to if I gave a crap today. I'm too tired to care what's going on right this instant with No Se Nada Torquemada 's replacement.

Batter up.

Update 7:29 PM 1/12/2009 : Keeeeeee-rap, here we go again. I want to read my favorite blogs and there goes blogrolling on the fritz again. Yeesh. Well, if I post 'em, at least I can get to them easily---

Blue Girl, Red State
Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Constantly Amazed, Yet Never Surprised
Outta the Cornfield
Jonestown
Guys from Area5 1
Welcome Back to Pottersville
Scoobie Davis Online
Ketchup is a Vegetable
ROTUS
Ornery Bastard
Alternate Brain
BlondeSense
johniwanski.com
Dyre Portents
Pooflingers
The Political Cat
skippy the bush kangaroo
They Gave Us A Republic...
The Great Endarkenment
One Pissed Off Veteran
distributorcap NY
The Democratic Daily.com
Monkeyfister
Leftblogistan
WTF is it Now?
INSTAPUTZ
Hullabaloo
The Apostate
The Barefoot Bum


The big kids on the playground that I normally don't link to
Daily Kos: State of the Nation
Feministe - In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set
AMERICA blog
MyDD :: Direct Democracy for People-Powered Politics
Bitch Ph.D.
Oliver Willis
Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community
Eschaton
The Daily Dish By Andrew Sullivan
Fire Dog Lake
tbogg


News

Mother Jones
The Nation
Bradblog
TPM
TPM Muckraker
OB Rag
Voice of San Diego.org
San Diego Reader
Crooks and Liars
Think Progress
Huffington Post.com
Alternet.org
NY Times
UK Guardian
LA Times
Washington Post
San Diego Citybeat

Happy Birthday to me

I've been blogging for three years today.

EXPOSÉ on the JOURNAL: Mr. Heath Goes Back to Washington

Sunlight Foundation.com

Earmark Watch.org

Cool. the following indepent film is interesting,


GRIT TV - Media Roundtable: Reported and Underreported (By MediaChannel. 1 hour long, but very interesting, the following documentary is discussed and looks interesting to me.)

Tomgram: Michael T. Klare, The Problem with Cheap Oil

Wow, back to this. Always back to this. I read this book some time before I started blogging three years ago. I've read some Michael Klare articles, one of his books, and listened to some of his lectures, but this book, The Prize by Daniel Yergin was the first to really clarify some things regarding oil for me.

Fighting Off Depression

PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 4, 2009

Yeah, I know, I never link to Krugman. This one scares the bejeezus out of me. It's a good thing I had a good day and saw my kid.

The whole world is watching

The propaganda war continues also.

Iran says 70,000 volunteer for Israel fight
January 5, 2009 02:04 PM EST

Hamas rockets rain on Israeli towns
Only three civilian fatalities to date, but a climate of fear pervades Israel's southern communities.
By Joshua Mitnick Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the January 7, 2009 edition

To Rid Slums of Drug Gangs, Police in Rio Try War Tactics
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 6, 2009; A08


How. Can. I. Not. Laugh?

Or, maybe I'm laughing at last night's Daily Show


hat tip to Jersey Cynic

The Cost of SLAPPing Down Journalism

Alan Rusbridger, who edits the British Guardian, thinks fear of libel lawsuits from big corporations may have contributed to journalists' failure to adequately report on the dangerous economic decisions that led to the recent implosion of the global financial system. In an article for the New York Review of Books, he recounts his own paper's "most recent serious brush with the British defamation laws" earlier this year when it was sued for libel by Tesco, one of the largest public companies in Britain and the fourth-largest retailer in the world.

Hmmmm. It's nice that someone is on the ball with this and reporting this. I wish it didn't feel so eh feh, ho hum, they dragged us into a war didn't they? Why should we believe anything (including the sale price advertisements) that we read in the papers anymore?

Frankly, the only reason the four major papers are on my blogroll is that the Prof wanted us to read them regularly in a class I took a sememster ago. Unless I go back and re-do the blogger blogroll, I can't get anything off of my blogroll. I can add, but not subtract. Blogrolling is still screwed up from the Islamist dickhead who hacked it.

sitemeter sez

today's popular post is DIME weapon.

They using that shit in Gaza again? Somehow I doubt it, but people are looking for information on it. These hits ain't coming from Gaza either, they're coming from large European cities.

50 facts about 9/11

I got nothing today. The headline looked amusing. I wish I could take naps, this cold is really getting boring.


Oh, looks like I found something.


By Aaron Glantz, New America Media. Posted January 3, 2009.
Did You Know 200,000 Vets Are Sleeping on the Streets?

What a silly question. It doesn't freeze in San Diego in the winter. Here's last year's "One Day Homeless Count" from last January. According to it 17% of 7,582 were vets. That's a minimum estimate and doesn't count at least another thousand migrant workers in a county of 3 million.

Violent returning GI's is a surprise?

A Focus on Violence by Returning G.I.’s
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ and DAN FROSCH
Published: January 1, 2009
FORT CARSON, Colo. —


This is a surprise?

Good God, all the time I used public transportation I warily eyed vets who'd lost their damn minds. They were usually easy to spot because they wore fatigues, which are really cheap in the thrift stores here. The war never left them alone. Their country didn't help them, the military culture forbids it. Oh, no fucking way, no head case shit in the service jacket. My counselor treats PTSD. I have it. There should be no way I can get an appointment, but I do, it's easy because the guys never get treated, unless you consider "drunk" a form of "treatment." Their girlfriends and wives end up in treatment a LOT, not to mention the fucking emergency rooms, or Mary Kay parties to learn how to cover the bruises. I didn't hang around long enough to learn how to use make-up to cover bruises, the only time I ever got the living shit beat out of me by a boyfriend he was ex-Army. Demolition to be exact.

What, now that most of the homeless whacked out Vietnam Vets are dead or dying, we need a whole new crop?

*sigh*

Someday maybe what our government does will make sense, but it sure isn't there yet.

Got tuh git er done quick-like, before the new sheriff comes to town

End of the Year Brings A Burst of Settlements With Justice Department

Justice's Matthew Friedrich announces Siemens's guilty plea to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The German company recently agreed to pay $450 million in fines. (By Chip Somodevilla -- Getty Images)

The Justice Department has reached more than a dozen business-related settlements since the presidential election, with more in the pipeline for January, prompting lawyers and interest groups to assert that companies are seeking more favorable terms before the new administration arrives.

happy New Year

yeah like that there. I think somebody is shooting in my neighborhood, totally illegal, I'm in the suburbs.

Drug cartels fact or fiction?

When I'm sick I like to watch some of my favorite movies. Traffic is one of them. They cut my all time favorite scene out of the movie. "#22 Robert meets Javier." Robert asks Javier if it's possible to be the Drug Czar in Mexico without having some connection to one of the drug cartels?" Javier answers "Yes is possible, if he's ready to die."

Interestingly enough, the brand name of the cocaine coming from the Juarez cartel going through Tijuana in this scene Robert refers to sounds an awful lot like "nine-eleven." Maybe that's why all the references to Javier becoming the "Mexican Drug Czar" are cut out of the movie. Kind of weird because of the movie's release dates

Mexico extradites 10 drug cartel suspects to US
Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2008
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico has sent 10 alleged drug smugglers to the United States, capping an already record year for extraditions between the two countries.
Mexico's federal Attorney General's office calls the suspects high-ranking members of the country's three most powerful drug cartels - the Gulf, Sinaloa and Arellano-Felix gangs.

Among them is a former federal official who allegedly worked as security chief for the Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix group. Armando Martinez Duarte is accused of protecting its members from police raids and killing cartel rivals in the border city of Mexicali.
Wednesday's extraditions raise the 2008 total to 95, up 12 from last year.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexican soldiers have captured an alleged high-ranking member of a drug gang known as "The Family."
The Defense Department says Alberto Espinoza Barron was arrested in the Pacific coast state of Michoacan on Monday.
A Defense statement alleges he was in charge of U.S.-bound cocaine shipments arriving at the state's Lazaro Cardenas port from South America.
He is also accused of bribing police, extorting businesses and ordering kidnappings and killings.
Mexico's Attorney General's office was interrogating him Wednesday.
Drug-related murders have nearly doubled this year to 5,300, federal officials say, despite a government crackdown on organized crime.2008-12-31 20:58:57 GMT

Trying to read

I finally gave up on this one.

The Price of Loyalty

The bastids is almos' gone, I cain't stands tuh see whut's they did tuh good men.

Documentary Doc Says AARP Is Major Impediment to Single Payer

from Corporate Crime Reporter

'Marley & Me' earns $50.7M box office biscuit

You know that nobody has time to train their dogs properly when this is the big hit.

Completely unrelated (unless you figure on less suburban dog ownership) but mighty interesting to me, Jim Kuntsler bops us on the head with his version of the coming realities. I tend to agree with him most of the time although he doesn't explain where the (mostly unpapered) South Americans (and their kids born here) doing this now will go

A lot of families will lose everything. They will sift and disperse into the housing owned by other family members -- parents, siblings -- and a strange new not-altogether comfortable kind of togetherness will become common. Over time, a lot of people will go looking for casual work "under-the-table"( and probably low-paying). To some degree, these workers will begin to look and act like a new servant class, and before too long they may be absorbed into the households of people who employ them. There will be plenty of room for them there.

BuckFush is always fabulous

I wonder if they'll keep going after the inauguration? Hell, Leno still spews Clinton Jokes, right? How tedious is that shit after he's been gone 8 years. Hmm, maybe the inauguration will stop the Clinton jokes? Yeah, I didn't think so, Republicans are pretty stupid and stubborn, no matter how fucked up things are, they just keep blaming the Democrats for the mess, no matter that Democrats are usually the ones cleaning up the messes that the Republicans made. And tax cuts for the (usually Republican)rich don't work.

Rove: History will be kind to Bush
Nick Cargo and David EdwardsPublished: Sunday December 28, 2008

Ahhh, *sigh* I can keep dreaming anyway, eh?

Religion sucks #15

or

I don't care about Israel and Palestine any more.

Why?

Because it's a big fucking clusterfuck GAME that the whole fucking world plays and concentrates on because it's sooooooooooo tragic and it's a nice distraction from the clusterfuck mess in your own Godamned country. That's why. And it will never be resolved until people clean up their own houses and their own backyards and stay the fuck out of it. I had a Jewish friend say to me one time, yeesh, let them kill each other over a stupid piece of dirt, who cares?

How can either side work towards peace when the cycle of revenge and violence from outside appearances is in their DNA? Fuck 'em. Let 'em kill each other. Let the Israelis sink or swim on their own, no more US aid. Let the idiot Palestinians survive on their own, no more aid, maybe they'll quit breeding like rats. Not that the Jews who steal their land don't breed like rats, they do.


What it really boils down to is, nobody will win this because both sides believe that God/Allah/Whatever is on their side. How can anyone say that either side is wrong when Allah told them to send rockets into the oppressor's neighborhoods, and G_d told them to retaliate because the Land was given to them by G-D?

Update:

Yep, looks like I'm not the only one tired of this shit.