A politician without principles??

I know, it shouldn't be shocking. Elected officials routinely sell out their principles, and their constituents, on a regular basis. They do it for money, for votes, for power, for any reason at all, basically.

Still, it can be disappointing. And this week, I'm disappointed in Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL), who announced today that he will not vote for the healthcare reform bill pending in the US House of Representatives.

Rep. Artur Davis announces he'll vote against health care bill

Davis has been a member of the Alabama delegation in the House since 2002. We don't actually live in his district; by less than a mile, we're represented by the moronic Spencer Bachus. Still, we've always been supporters of Davis. He's been particularly good to the Jewish community, speaking at our synagogue and to other Jewish organizations. Since his predecessor, Earl Hilliard, was a borderline anti-Semite, this was a welcome change.

In June, Rep. Davis announced he would run for Alabama's governorship in 2010. We attended his "kickoff" event in downtown Birmingham, and were invited to stand on stage behind Davis as he gave his speech.

But after today's announcement, I'm done.

I know what he's doing. He's giving up his principles (he has talked of supporting a public option in healthcare reform in the past) so that the inbred, Fox News-watching hicks who make up the majority of this state will vote for him. I know it, but I don't like it.

Alabama is one of the states that would benefit the most from a true healthcare reform, and a public option. We have a ridiculous amount of people -- mostly children -- in this state without health insurance.

But apparently, Mr. Davis doesn't care. In fact, he apparently cares more about his own political future than he does about what's best for his district, his state, and his nation.

And that's a shame. And what makes it even more a shame is that I doubt it will work. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Alabama will elect an African-American as governor. Not yet, anyway.

In any case, if he wins the governorship, he'll have to do it without my vote. Because I'm done with Artur Davis.

Before I "unfollowed" Rep. Davis on Facebook (and Twitter!), I posted this to his Facebook page:

Rep. Davis, I've been a supporter of you for a long time. My family and I were on stage behind you when you announced your run for governor in Linn Park.

But with today's announcement that you won't vote for health care reform, I am done with you. Will no longer support you, will no longer donate to your campaign, will no longer follow you on Facebook, and I certainly won't vote for you.

You are well aware that the healthcare bill pending in the House is the ONLY version of healthcare reform that will come up for a vote this year, or probably next year. So by refusing to vote for it, you have explicitly endorsed the status quo, and you'll be on the wrong side of the most important vote of your Congressional career.

Is this healthcare bill perfect? No. In my mind, the public option should be even STRONGER. But it is a thousand times better than our current healthcare system, which wastes hundreds of millions of dollars every year, dooms children and adults alike to early deaths, and benefits no one except for insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms.

You have sold out your principles in an attempt to be "moderate" and a "conservative Democrat," so that the people of Alabama will elect you governor.

In doing so, Mr. Davis, I guarantee you that you've lost at least one vote, that, until now, was about as reliable and rock-solid that you could have asked for.

Yes We Can!!! Mostly.

An historic night last night, as Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. Obama scored the largest electoral college win since 1996, winning at least 349 electoral votes to John McCain's 147, with Missouri and North Carolina still outstanding.

It wasn't the complete domination I'd hoped for. Montana, Georgia, and Arizona went for McCain, and Republicans held on to endangered Senate seats in Georgia, Kentucky, and possibly Alaska (still too close to call). But what are Alaska Republicans thinking? I guess if you can elect a wack-job like Sarah Palin governor, you don't mind a convicted felon like Ted Stevens as your senator.

Civil rights in the form of marriage equality took a big hit last night, too. Anti-same sex marriage initatives were approved in Arizona, Florida, and California. (Absentee ballots remain to be counted in California, but it doesn't look good.)

Despite the fact that Florida is my former home state and I have a lot of friends there, the result in California is particularly disappointing for me. For a few reasons:

(1) California is generally a relatively liberal state; certainly the win for Obama in CA was never in doubt. In some ways, I feel like, if the voters in CALIFORNIA won't support marriage equality, who will???

(2) Unlike in Florida and Arizona, the vote on Prop 8 in California REMOVES a pre-existing right. Same-sex couples have had the right to marry in California since earlier this year. Now, that right has (presumably) been cruelly stripped away. What happens to the same-sex marriages that were already legal? Do they instantly become void?

Or, if pre-existing same-sex marriages remain, doesn't that create two classes of people in California? Those who got married before November 4, and those who didn't? That's blatantly unconstitutional.

(3) The anti-gay "Yes on Prop 8" campaign was mostly funded (possibly as much as 75%) by the Mormon Church. Their ads were misleading and tried to convince voters that churchs and synagogues would be forced to perform gay marriage if Prop 8 failed. "Religious freedom" could be at stake, they said.

Bullshit. If you don't like gay people, and consider them second-class citizens, just say so. Although I'd vehemently disagree with that stance, at least it would be an honest one. But the very well-funded "Yes on 8" forces were able to use lies and misdirection to confuse just enough of the electorate for a narrow win.

Sadly, even some Orthodox Jewish groups got into the act, aligning with the Mormons and evangelical Christian groups. I'm ashamed to be a member of the same religion as the people who would send out (and many of those who comment on) articles like this homophobic piece of shit.

(4) Finally, I can't decide what Barack Obama's role should have been in the fight against Proposition 8. When asked on an MTV interview about it, he sort of hedged his bets:

"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that's not what America's about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them."

In one way, disappointing to hear him say "I am not in favor of gay marriage." Yet, on the other hand, he got it right in saying that our constitutions usually expand liberties, not curtail them.

I don't know. His candidacy brought lots of African-Americans to the polls in California (and across the nation). Gay rights is a difficult issue for the A-A community, especially for the evangelical A-A population. Exit polls suggest that nearly 70% of black voters voted for Proposition 8, against marriage equality.

With such a close vote overall, I can't help but wonder if Obama could have made a difference. In the last couple of days, couldn't he have recorded a commercial or robocall for the No on 8 campaign? Stating that constitutionally-mandated discrimination is something that no one -- particularly African-Americans -- should support?

Sure, a pro-gay marriage stance -- even a quiet one -- might have hurt his votes in some rural areas. It wouldn't have put his win in California in jeopardy, obviously. But maybe, if the McCain camp moved quickly to make an issue of it, it could have caused Obama to lose some of the close states he won last night? Maybe Virginia, maybe Indiana?

What if he'd turned even 10% of the A-A population from "Yes" to "No" votes on Proposition 8?

We'll never know, of course. And there remain legal and legislative options for marriage equality across the nation. This fight is not over, and I firmly believe that one day, our daughter Sophie will look back on this fight the way we look back at the bans on interracial marriage. It's nearly inconceivable to me that America once told blacks and whites they couldn't marry each other.

When Sophie is my age, I think she'll feel the same incredulity about the fact that two men or two women couldn't get married.

In any case, a great night for America last night. But it could have been even greater.

Hope vs. Nope

In 2004, on the day before Election Day, I wrote a post on this blog entitled: Please, America. Do the right thing tomorrow.

Yeah, well. We all know how that turned out.

So here we are, four years later, on the cusp of a historic election. America is about to elect either our first black president or our first female vice president.

Lines are stretching for blocks in states with early voting; I have no idea what the lines will be like here tomorrow, in non-early-voting Alabama. I've never in my life waited more than 5 minutes to cast a vote, in any election. I suspect that may change tomorrow.

I'm sure the vast majority (of the small minority) of people who read this blog have either (1) already voted via early/absentee ballot; or (2) have decided, with 100% certainty, for who they'll vote tomorrow. (And if you're not voting in this election, you'd better be under 18 and/or not an American citizen. Otherwise, no acceptable excuse.)

But just in case there are any "undecided" voters among my readership, let me make the final case for Barack Obama.

America has been incredibly damaged by the eight years of George W. Bush's presidency. I almost typed "irreparably," but I hope that's not the case. Our standing in the world is in tatters due to the nonsense of the Iraq war. We're spending $10 billion dollars EVERY MONTH in Iraq, driving our nation further into debt. Our education and healthcare systems are a fucking joke compared to the rest of the industrial world.

Osama bin Laden, who murdered 3000 Americans on 9/11, remains at large. Bush had a chance to finish the war in Afghanistan, finish al-Qaeda once and for all, and he pissed away that chance, pulling troops into the Iraq quagmire instead.

Under eight years of George W. Bush, the disparity in this nation between rich and poor grew even wider. GWB rewarded his fat cat donors, his corporate masters, his oil company buddies with tax cuts and credits.

While New Orleans drowned, Bush helped John McCain celebrate his birthday. With cake, even.

The way John McCain has campaigned for the presidency leaves no doubt that he'd govern this nation the same way Bush has. He's run a divisive, nasty campaign, just like Bush ran in 2000 and 2004. Supporters at his rallies yell "terrorist" when Barack Obama's name is mentioned, they harass and sometimes attack members of the press, and McCain does nothing.

Like Bush before him, McCain is only interested in dividing the country to help him win. He doesn't care if he turns 50.1% of the nation against the other 49.9% if it gets him to 270 electoral votes.

His "Country First" campaign slogan was proven to be a crock of shit when he nominated Sarah Palin to the VP slot. It was clear then, that it was "McCain First," and always has been. No one can, with a straight face, state that Palin was the most qualified choice for the position. Not even close. A 72-year-old man, with a history of cancer, has chosen an unqualified crackpot to be second-in-line to the presidency. Unforgivable.

And yet, I don't want to encourage people to vote against George W. Bush. Or vote against John McCain. Or even vote against Sarah Palin.

Instead, I want people to vote FOR BARACK OBAMA.

This is a man that can bring this nation together. A man who would end the war in Iraq during his presidency. A man who will push for a healthcare system that will offer coverage to all Americans (and that's not "socialism," morons!). A man who will decrease the tax disparity between rich and poor; he understands that the largest tax breaks should go to the people who need them, not the people who don't.

I want a president who is smart, particularly after the monkey of the last eight years. Obama is a graduate of Columbia and Harvard, where he finished magna cum laude. He was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review.

The man has brains. And he has a power to bring people together like no elected official I've ever seen. The way he has gotten people excited about his campaign, the way he defeated Hillary Clinton in the primaries (who had every possible advantage going in) is just amazing.

He is a devoted father and husband, and by all accounts he adores and dotes on his two daughters. I don't like to harp too much on "family values," but I think the way a person treats his/her family says a lot about their character.

I turned 18 in 1992, and cast my first presidential vote for Bill Clinton. I wasn't particularly politically-connected, but I knew I was a Democrat. I still think Bill Clinton was a great president, but his legacy will always be tarnished by the fact that he couldn't keep his pants zipped. (And to me, his conduct during the Obama/Hillary primary was deplorable.)

In 2000, I was -- and continue to be -- a fervent admirer of Al Gore. He would have been an amazing president; and yet, in the long run, he may do more good for the world because he lost (or, "lost") in 2000.

Barack Obama, though, has a real chance to be the greatest president of my generation. I will take my daughter Sophie to the polls with me tomorrow. And even though she's only two-and-a-half, and even though it may be tricky to stand in line with her for an extended period of time, and even though Alabama will end up in John McCain's column tomorrow, Sophie will be with me when I cast my vote.

Because I want her to know that she was in the voting booth on the day America made history.

Heart to Sarah Palin: "Fuck Off!"

OK, OK, maybe I'm paraphrasing a little.

Still, the rock band Heart has told Republican VP candidate Palin to stop using their 1977 classic "Barracuda," even though it is the fantastically-unqualified Palin's nickname. Their record label, Sony/BMG, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to the McCain/Palin campaign.

From the statement by sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson, founders of Heart:

"Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song 'Barracuda' no longer be used to promote her image. The song 'Barracuda' was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The 'barracuda' represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there's irony in Republican strategists' choice to make use of it there."

Heh. I knew I always liked them.

This is not the first time McCain and/or his party have been asked by a recording artist to stop playing their music. In fact, during this campaign, this is at least the sixth time an artist has asked either McCain or the GOP to stop using their songs, as Republican politics and beliefs go against everything they stand for. John Mellencamp, John Hall of the band Orleans (now a Democratic congressman from New York), Van Halen, Jackson Browne, and Frankie Valli have all previously chastised McCain for playing their music without permission.

Oh, and actor Mike Myers forced McCain to take down a web clip earlier this year that used a scene from "Wayne's World" without permission.

This may seem like a trivial matter, but maybe there's a lesson to be learned here. Is it possible that McCain and Palin -- and the voters they are trying to court -- are not sophisticated enough to handle the subtlety of music lyrics?

I mean, Barracuda, as the Wilson sisters note, was intended to be a rant against the soulless nature of the music business. Isn't there, as they say, more than a little irony in the Republican party, the most corporate-owned political party in the history of the world, using it as an anthem? I can just see the empty-headed GOPers bopping along in their seats, not even realizing that the song is about their fat, white, corporate-owned asses.

For heaven's sake, Mellencamp's song Our Country calls on government to "help the poor and common man." Does that sound like something the Republican Party is particularly interested in?

I guess McCain really is the heir to Ronald Reagan, who blindly played Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" at rallies in 1984, until Springsteen asked the campaign to stop. Reagan and the other dullards around him thought it was a nice, patriotic song about how great it was to have been born in the USA.

If only they could have done something complicated like, oh, I don't know, listened to the goddamn lyrics, maybe they'd have figured it out.

But again, reading, subtlety, deeper meaning -- these are not part of the GOP's platform.

Is Grandpa McCain the next Doug Flutie??

For his sake, he'd better hope so. Because he's just thrown a GIANT Hail Mary pass with his selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

I'm not sure what to think of this. A lot of speculation at DailyKos that other people (Romney, Lieberman, Pawlenty) turned McCain down and Palin wasn't his first choice.

I dunno. To me, this feels like a potential game-changer, something McCain needed to do to shake up the race. Despite recent polls that show the race between Barack Obama and McCain nearly tied, the electoral math is much better for Obama. Basically, if Obama wins any one of Colorado, Ohio, or Virginia, it's a done deal. There's virtually no way McCain can get to 270 electoral votes without all three of those states.

So I think the McCain campaign knew they needed a huge pick, a gamble. When a football team is losing by 4 with only 5 seconds left on the clock, and they're 60 yards from the endzone, there's only one thing to do -- throw a Hail Mary pass.

Most of the time, Hail Mary passes fall to the ground, incomplete, game over. But every so often (less than 10% of the time), a receiver makes a miraculous catch and the team that was behind wins the game. It's that less than 10% chance I'm kind of concerned about.

What can be said with certainty, however, is that this was completely a political choice for McCain. He's not thinking about how to best govern this nation, he's thinking about winning, plain and simple. (If Obama had chosen Hillary Clinton as his running mate, I would have said the same thing about him.)

I mean, come on. John McCain is 72 years old (today is his birthday, actually). He'd be the oldest person ever inaugurated president. He has a history of cancer. It's not crude to suggest that there's a decent possibility he could have health problems (or possibly even die) during four years, or especially eight years, as President.

And this makes the selection of his Vice President all the more crucial. So who does he pick? A woman who has been governor of Alaska for two years. Before that, she was mayor of the town of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of less than 10,000 people.

This makes her qualified to be second in line to the Presidency of the United States, behind a 72-year-old man?

All of McCain and the Republican Party's criticism of Barack Obama for being "inexperienced" (which he's not) just went out the window.

The McCain camp did time this pick very well; the press coverage is now all about Sarah Palin, pushing the coverage of Obama's masterful acceptance speech in front of 80,000 people last night to the sidelines. The timing was no accident, of course.

This is a political trick, a desperate act by a desperate man. But, the most dangerous animal is a cornered one, so I'm not celebrating Obama's win as a foregone conclusion just yet. Interesting to see how this plays out in the minds of the American people; and that will depend on how it is presented to them by the media.

Will the media pounce on this pick and ridicule Palin for being unprepared and unqualified, as they did with Dan Quayle in 1988?

Or will the media continue their love affair with John McCain and lavish praise on him for his "daring" and "unorthodox" choice?

Only time will tell.

Joe Lieberman = Douchebag

Need further proof?

Independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, took his criticism of Barack Obama to a new level Wednesday, writing in an op-ed that Republican John McCain’s “political courage” stands in stark contrast to Barack Obama’s – and that his former party had moved “further to the left than it has been at any point in the last 20 years.”
"Lieberman: Obama not willing to 'stand up to the left wing'", CNN.com

Uh, no, Joe.

You're a backstabbing traitor who left the Democratic Party when the Democrats in your state kicked your sorry-ass to the curb. You're writing for the Wall Street Journal, for heaven's sake. When you write for one of Rupert Murdoch's many right-wing propaganda outlets, you have no credibility in chastising your former party.

You've moved so far to the right, I'm not surprised the Democratic Party looks "far left" to you. I'm surprised you can even see out, you've crawled so far up the Bush/McCain ass.

I can't wait for the Democratic leadership in the Senate to kick your ass to the curb in the next Congress. When the Democrats gain a real majority in the Senate, your hypocritical, lying ass won't be needed. You'll finish out your term in obscurity and out of power, and in 2012, if you're dumb enough to run again, the voters in CT will boot your Republican tuchus into retirement.

And that will be a glorious day.

Keith Olbermann is my hero.

Seriously. "Mr. Bush, shut the hell up." And you could see by his crazy eyes -- he really, really wanted to say "shut the FUCK up."

Link: Olbermann's "preview" of this Comment at DailyKos

Senatorially Speaking.

An interesting experience today.

A mass email was sent out to the members of the local chapter of the National Jewish Democratic Council on behalf of Alabama State Senator Vivian Figures. She is running for the US Senate this November against our Republican incumbent, Jeff Sessions.

The email was inquiring about the possibility of Senator Figures speaking to our NJDC chapter, and linked to her website. I looked at her website, and from the site, could not determine whether she was a Democrat challenging Sessions in the general election or a Republican primary challenger. I found that neither of the words "Democrat" or "Democratic" appeared anywhere on her site.

After confirming via other sources that she is in fact a Democratic state Senator from Mobile, I sent the following reply to the PR rep who had sent the original email:

Personally, I'm not particularly interested in hearing anyone speak to the NJDC who can't even place the word "Democrat" or "Democratic" anywhere on her website. (I've Googled the entire figures2008.com site, and neither term appears anywhere within.)

I would love to see Jeff Sessions pack his bags. But even in Alabama, in 2008, we can (and should) be proud to be Democrats.

If your firm is working with Sen. Figures, and trying to get her in front of DEMOCRATIC groups in Alabama, I'd suggest a little more party identification would be helpful.

The representative of Sen. Figures responded quickly, thanking me for my concerns. He also said that the Senator would like to call me and discuss the matter with me.

I provided my cell phone number.

Not 10 minutes later, it rings. And it is Senator Figures on the phone herself, not a representative, not a secretary.

What followed was a 30-40 minute conversation, easily the longest I've ever had with an elected official at the state level (or higher). Senator Figures thanked me for my concerns, and told me that she is certainly not running away from the term "Democrat." She's been a proud Democrat all her life, she said, and promised that the website will soon reflect a more prominent statement of party affiliation.

I know, I know, promises from politicians are a dime-a-dozen. But the mere fact that she called me to discuss my concerns really impresses me. Not only that, she gave me -- as she gives everyone -- her HOME phone number, usually forwarded to her cell phone, and asked me to call her at any time with any concerns.

She seems like the real deal, and if she's half as sincere as she appears to be, she'd be a welcome replacement for our "good ol' boy" incumbent, Jeff Sessions. I related the story of how Raya and I met Senator Sessions in 2003 at the United Jewish Communities Washington 13 conference, and how he was completely patronizing. Not only did he have no interest in signing on to the bill for which we were lobbying, he also made it clear that our opinions were useless to him. I guess he knew that he wasn't getting a lot of Jewish votes in Alabama, anyway.

I also told the Senator that I'd applied to attend the 2008 Democratic National Convention as a member of the State Blogger Corps. She promised to help if there's any way she can do so.

Senator Figures is a strong opponent of the Iraq War, wants to bring our troops home immediately. Sounds good to me.

Look, I would have voted for any Democrat running against Jeff Sessions in November. That moron needs to go. But Senator Figures really impressed me, responding personally to an offhand email comment. She really wanted to take the time to understand why it was important to me, and I appreciated that.

Personal conversations with elected officials? Very rare indeed.

Orwellian.

Wow. Remember when there used to be such a thing as the "liberal media"?

Shit, today I'd be grateful for an unbiased media, not controlled by conservative corporations with their noses shoved up the Republican Party's asshole.

Last night, 60 Minutes aired a report on the politically-motivated prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, exposing the dirty little fingers of Karl Rove in this operation.

However, viewers in North Alabama didn't get to see the Siegelman story on 60 Minutes. Why? Well, coincidentally enough, WHNT-19, the CBS affiliate in Huntsville, just happened to be off the air for 12 of the 13 minutes of the Siegelman story. How convenient.

Hmm. On the screen, in place of the 60 Minutes report, WHNT placed this notice:

We apologize that you missed the first segment of 60 Minutes tonight featuring ‘The Prosecution of Don Siegelman.’ It was a technical problem with CBS out of New York.

Well, nobody understands technical difficulties more than me, so end of story, right? Not so fast. An intrepid blogger named Scott Horton contacted CBS headquarters in New York, who told him this:

There is no delicate way to put this: the WHNT claim is not true. There were no transmission difficulties. The problems were peculiar to Channel 19, which had the signal and had functioning transmitters.” I was told that the decision to blacken screens across Northern Alabama “could only have been an editorial call."

Quickly, WHNT changed their story, saying that the technical problem had been on their end, with one of their satellite receivers, and not at the New York end.

Upon investigation, WHNT has learned that the satellite receiver that allows us to receive programming from CBS failed. The problem was on our end, not the network's.

WHNT rebroadcast the Siegelman segment during their local news last night, and also prominently posted the complete report on their website.

Again, end of story, right?

No, not necessarily. Even if you take WHNT's explanation at face value (which I have trouble) doing, and give them the benefit of the doubt that it was in fact technical difficulties, and give them credit for rebroadcasting the segment on-air and on their website, there's still the troubling matter of this:

Alabama GOP responds to 60 Minutes Report

This press release from the Alabama Republican Party is linked from WHNT's front page. No explanation, no editorial analysis, no context. WHNT is treating the 60 Minutes report as if it is one side of a debate, rather than an unbiased piece of reporting from the station's parent network.

Indeed, one of the main witnesses interviewed in the report was former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods. Not only is Woods a Republican, he's also co-chair of the McCain for President committee, in addition to being the godfather of one of John McCain's children!!! Not exactly a screaming liberal, and yet he said:

I personally believe that what happened here is that they targeted Don Siegelman because they could not beat him fair and square. This was a Republican state and he was the one Democrat they could never get rid of.

By allowing the Alabama GOP to respond with ridiculous talking points, WHNT legitimizes their argument. There are not necessarily "two sides to every story." Sometimes, there are the facts, and then there is everything else.

But, WHNT is controlled by "Oak Hill Partners" and the Bass family, who are known for giving large amounts of cash to Republican candidates. So none of this should surprise us, really.

The days of being able to trust ANYTHING from the mainstream media are over. They are all whores to their corporate masters, and the editorial decisions are made based on politics and greed.

Why I'm voting for Barack Obama

You know, a lot of times, it's difficult to be a liberal Democrat in Alabama. Not because we're persecuted, or anything like that. But because of the constant reminders that our votes don't count.

I mean, GWB carried this state by a margin of 250,000 votes in 2000, and over half a million votes in 2004. So although I went to the polls, what difference did it make, really? In our "winner-take-all" electoral college system, the nearly 700,000 Alabamians who voted for John Kerry in 2004 might as well have stayed home. We made no difference.

Alabama has been similarly irrelevant in recent primary elections, as well. Our primary was held so late in the season, the candidates were already long-decided. In 2004, our primary was on June 1, for heaven's sake!! In today's political climate, we didn't count for anything; John Kerry had been the presumptive Democratic nominee for nearly three months at that point.

In 2008, things are different. Now, I hold no hope that Alabama will vote for a Democrat in November's general election. But at least in the primary, we here in the heart of Dixie have a chance to make a difference, as Alabama votes on "Super Tuesday," February 5. And with the overall race so close, and a recent Birmingham News poll showing Senators Clinton and Obama in a virtual tie, Alabama Democrats have a real chance to have our votes heard.

Here are the reasons that, on February 5, I'm voting for Senator Barack Obama (listed in order of importance to me):

1. The war in Iraq. To me, the 2008 election is, first and foremost, a referendum on the eight horrendous years of George W. Bush and his policies. And, the legacy of Dubya will always be this misguided war in Iraq, the war that has cost us 3,000 American lives and billions of dollars.

Senator Obama gains my respect because he's been against the war in Iraq from the very beginning. As early as fall 2002, while still serving in the Illinois Senate, Obama took a strong position against the war, telling a crowd of supporters: "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."

In contrast, Senator Clinton's position on the war has been unclear and has shifted several times. In October 2002, she voted for the President's authorization to use force in Iraq. Now, like all Americans, Clinton was lied to by the Bush Administration about the rationale for the war. But while others have admitted they were misled and should not have voted for the war, Senator Clinton has refused to apologize for her vote, or admit it was a mistake.

On Larry King Live in 2004, Clinton said: "Obviously, I've thought about that a lot in the months since. No, I don't regret giving the president authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade."

If Senator Clinton can't admit her past mistakes, can't see that this war was the United States' worst foreign policy blunder in decades, then I can't vote for her.

And indeed, Clinton would seem to invite me and others like me to vote for someone else. In February of last year, she said: "If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from."

Indeed, Senator.

2. Electability. It's crucial that we get a Democrat elected in 2008 and 2012. The eight years of Bush's presidency have done grave damage to civil liberties, legal protections, corporate responsibility, and the American economy. We need four or eight years to repair the damage that Bush has done to this country, domestically and to our reputation across the world.

We need a candidate that can defeat the Republican nominee. And with each passing primary, it appears as though the Republicans are finally getting their act together, and will nominate Senator John McCain, who is easily the most electable of their candidates.

In my heart of hearts, I don't believe that Hillary Clinton can defeat John McCain in November. They are similar candidates, but McCain trumps her on Senate experience, foreign policy experience, and has much more chance to win over independent and moderate voters. With Clinton, most people have already decided -- they love her or they hate her. Not a lot of middle ground.

If it's Clinton versus McCain in November, I fear McCain wins. Even more so if he does something "bold" like choose Joe Lieberman (the ultimate Republican-in-Democrat clothing) as his running mate.

If it's Obama versus McCain, it's still a tough race. But I think Obama has a much better chance.

3. Preventing an oligarchy. Counting George H.W. Bush's service as Vice President, there has been a Bush or Clinton in the White House for 28 consecutive years now. If Hillary Clinton wins this November, that streak extends to 32 years, possibly 36 years with a re-election in 2012.

Do we really want to entrust that sort of control in two families, two dynasties? Even discounting Bush's vice presidential years, a Bush or Clinton has been president for the last two decades. Do we want to extend that line?

Surely there must be someone qualified to be President who isn't named Bush or Clinton, right? The United States is not a monarchy, or an oligarchy, where power is concentrated in a few elite families. Is it really good for the nation to go from Bush to Clinton to Bush to Clinton??

4. Escaping from divisive politics. Ever since 1992, there has been a President in office that half the country absolutely detested. Bill Clinton was hated with a vengeance by the Right, somewhat unjustly, but still. And since invading Iraq and ignoring the Constitution, George W. Bush has been detested by the Left in this country.

Aren't we sick of it? Do we really want to elect another President that engenders such vitrolic hatred? Now, it's not all Hillary Clinton's fault that she conjures up such venom from the Right. A lot of it is simply that they hated her husband, so they hate her by association. There's also some sexism to it, as a woman with ambition and a desire for power is seen as less of a woman, as a "bitch" or an "ice queen." A man would never be viewed that way.

So while I have some sympathy for her in this case, I'm also tired of the widening divide in this country. And yes, there will always be partisan politics. Republicans aren't going to fall down and kiss Obama's feet if he wins, and Democrats aren't going to instantly fall in love with McCain if he wins. But either of those candidates would be less divisive than Senator Clinton.

5. A Dirty Campaign. And speaking of "divisiveness," this brings me to my last point. Senator Clinton and her husband have been running a nasty, nasty campaign. It certainly seems as though they are out to win, at all costs, regardless of long-term damage to the Democratic Party.

In 1992, the first Presidential election in which I was able to vote, I wasn't very tuned in to the process. I knew I was a liberal, knew I'd vote for Clinton over Bush, and so I didn't pay much attention. (Of course, we didn't have dailykos.com back then, either.)

So maybe this is how Bill Clinton campaigned for President as well, and I just didn't know about it. But the tactics that the Hillary Clinton campaign is using make me sick to my stomach, as she's driving wedges between core constituencies of the Democratic Party.

For example, a Clinton pollster had this to say: "the Hispanic voter -- and I want to say this very carefully -- has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates."

Now. Very little in a political campaign is said unscripted. This statement was carefully crafted to "remind" Hispanic voters that they "don't support" black candidates. Why? Because the Clinton campaign assumes they are going to lose most black voters, so they make a play for Hispanic voters, using this racist claptrap. "Remember, Hispanics? You don't like black people."

But in November, don't we all need to pull together and support the Democratic nominee? Why are the Clintons trying so hard to divide the party? Does win at all costs really mean "all costs"???

And of course, there are the constant "Obama is really a Muslim" references. The Clinton campaign made calls in Nevada, stressing Obama's middle name, referring to him as "Barack Hussein Obama."

On CNN, former Senator Bob Kerrey, a Clinton supporter, disingenuously said: "It’s probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There’s a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal. I’ve watched the blogs try to say that you can’t trust him because he spent a little bit of time in a secular madrassa. I feel quite the opposite."

What a fucking slimeball!! First of all, getting in the implication that Obama is still a Muslim (which shouldn't really matter, but he's not!); and then secondly, implying that he spent time in a Muslim school, a madrassa. Which he never did; and additionally, there's no such thing as a "secular madrassa." That's like saying a "secular Catholic school."

The Clinton's winner-take-all attitude is reprehensible. It's also reminiscent of the way George W. Bush ran his campaign against Kerry in 2004, and Gore in 2000. And I think it will come back to bite them in the ass. If Clinton is the Democratic nominee, I think a lot of liberals will stay home in November, unable to stomach voting for her.

If I do that, in Alabama, it won't matter. As I said in the beginning, the Republican nominee will carry this state no matter what. But if liberal Democrats stay home in Ohio, or Florida, or Pennsylvania, or Washington, or New Mexico? Then it might make a big difference, and Republicans will sweep to victory.

And that's why I'm voting for Barack Obama on February 5.

Would CNBC have given airtime to Adolf Hitler???

So, as most of you probably know, conservative whore Ann Coulter said some pretty remarkable things on an episode of CNBC's "The Big Idea" this week. Of course, Coulter has made her fame and fortune spewing hate. But this was a little extreme, even for her, which is why the mainstream media has picked up on it.

Offering her version of a dream America, Coulter discussed the 2004 Republican National Convention in this exchange with host Donny Deutsch:

COULTER: Well, OK, take the Republican National Convention. People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America, they --

DEUTSCH: Christian -- so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: We should all be Christian?

COULTER: Yes. Would you like to come to church with me, Donny?

Now. I'll set aside her ridiculous assumption that EVERYONE at the 2004 RNC was Christian. I don't believe that's true, but it's not relevant. She goes on to add that Jews simply need to be "perfected." (Side note: This is a common argument among evangelicals, one that makes me incredibly nervous about their increasing support for Israel.)

How can this hateful woman surprise anyone anymore? This is the woman who said John Edwards' haircut made him look like a "faggot."

This is a woman who said, of a group of 9/11 widows, "I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much."

And: "It would be a much better country if women did not vote."

And amazingly, she said this: "Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment." Amazing, because the First Amendment gives her the freedom to preach her hate.

So anyone who is surprised by the venom that drips from her fangs is a fool. But what is really frustrating is that the hosts, producers, and creators of these shows where she preaches her hate then act surprised when Coulter simply does what she always does.

Donny Deutsch pretended to be dismayed and offended on the show, and CNBC moved quickly to distance themselves from Coulter's remarks.

What the fuck did they expect??? When you invite a cow into your home, should you be surprised when it takes a shit all over your carpet?

So I lay the blame not on Coulter -- I'm beyond holding her to any sort of human standard. The excrement that comes out of her mouth has lost the ability to shock me.

Instead, I blame CNBC, CNN, Fox News, and the other mainstream TV networks in this country for allowing her to peddle her hate on their airwaves. According to mediamatters.org, Coulter has appeared on the NBC family of networks (NBC, MSNBC, CNBC) a whopping 194 times in the last decade.

While Coulter has the right to say whatever she wants (even though she's not a "big fan" of free speech), the networks don't have to continue to give her a soapbox for her hate. That's why I strongly support the petition being circulated online by the National Jewish Democratic Council in the wake of her anti-Semitic nonsense.

The petition encourages the networks to quit inviting her. A simple answer. Let's stop giving the bitch airtime to preach her hatred.

Please, click the button at right and sign the NJDC's petition today.

*(the quotes above, and lots more vile Coulter quotes available at Wikiquote.)

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried....

...man, who's running the Republican Party these days? A bunch of dumbasses?

Oh yeah, right.

Not only are they quickly positioning themselves as the anti-children party, yesterday they revealed the logo for the 2008 GOP convention.

An interesting piece of graphic design, don't you think? First of all, I believe there's only one time when elephants stand on their hind legs like that, and it's when they are....making more elephants, so to speak.

So this logo does accurately portray what the Republicans have been doing to this country, and what they'd like to do to us in 2008. At least there's some honesty there.

Secondly, aren't the Republicans supposed to be the "red state" party? Yet the ratio of blue to red in this logo looks to be about 80/20. Guess even Republicans don't want to be associated with red states at the moment.

Thirdly, doesn't that elephant seem to have somewhat of a "wide stance"? Since the GOP convention will be in Minneapolis/St. Paul of all places, he'd better stay out of airport bathrooms, just in case.

Do Republicans hate children?

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that will expand and extend the State Children's Health Insurance Program, known as S-CHIP. This program, which is about to expire, currently provides health insurance for 6.6 million children whose parents can't afford private insurance.

The bill in question would expand the program to cover 10 million children, making a dent in the 9 million American kids without healthcare, spending $60 billion over the next five years. By getting kids regular medical care, it should keep uninsured children from visiting the emergency room as often, saving us all money in the long run.

The bill was passed in a bipartisan effort, 45 House Republicans joining nearly all House Democrats in voting for it.

And, although the bill has passed both the House and Senate, in the House it passed by less than a two-thirds vote. Meaning that, unless things change, the House doesn't have the votes to override President Bush's promised veto.

Now, why is President Bush threatening to use only the fourth veto of his presidency on a bill to help kids' get regular medical care? Not sure, and I've given up trying to interpret the miniscule efforts of the president's brain.

But what sickens me is that some Republicans, including all of Alabama's Republican representatives, have joined the president in opposing this bill. And I'd like to know why.

So I just sent the following email to our congressman, Rep. Spencer Bachus.

I am completely disappointed and disgusted that you sir, chose to vote against the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP).

This bill was a carefully crafted piece of bipartisan legislation. It has the approval of a long list of oft-combative organizations, including the AMA, the AARP, and health insurance providers. It would help some of the 9 million uninsured American children obtain health insurance and get regular health care.

As a parent of an 18-month-old child who was born 7 weeks premature, I understand the importance of regular doctor's visits for children. Yet for families without health insurance, paying for these regular checkups is sometimes impossible. So, families wait until their children are seriously ill; at that point, they take them to the emergency room.

As an employee of UAB, and someone who has taken classes in Healthcare Management, I understand that emergency room care is the MOST EXPENSIVE possible. Yet for families without health insurance, it is their only option. And who pays for their healthcare at that point? We do.

Insuring as many American children as we can is not only the morally responsible thing to do; it is the financially sound option as well.

Yet you and the rest of Alabama's spineless Republican delegation have chosen to, once again, be President Bush's lapdogs and vote the way the White House tells you. The reasons for President Bush's opposition to this bill are not clear, at least to me. The 60 billion dollars contained in the S-CHIP expansion are a drop in the bucket compared to the billions we're spending in Iraq. And, in the long run, getting regular health care for children will save us money, as it will keep them out of our emergency rooms.

But you don't care about that. You don't care about anything other than following orders from the White House. You've turned your back on the 10 million American children without health care.

And as a result, I will turn my back on you. I will never, ever, ever vote for you again, and I will celebrate the day when citizens concerned with the welfare of the Alabama family throw you out of office.

Your colleague Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL) posed an interesting question, when he said: "I'm a little baffled as to why the Bush people picked this issue to fight it out on. It's very sensitive. It's about kids. Who's against kids' health care?"

Apparently, you are, Mr. Bachus.

I would encourage you to rethink your position and join the 45 members of your party in the House who are supporting this bill. Send a message to the president by overriding his veto, and tell the White House that in Alabama, we care for our children.

Well, they may not have health insurance....

...but at least "childrens do learn."

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Offering a grammar lesson guaranteed to make any English teacher cringe, President George W. Bush told a group of New York school kids on Wednesday: "Childrens do learn."

Yes, America, there's your "C-student and proud of it" president. At his very best.

The White House opted to clean up Bush's diction in the official transcript.

That's pitiful. Let his idiocy stand throughout time, as a warning against what happens when you elect a chimp to the White House.

Full story is here.

Congressman Artur Davis (D-AL)

Speaking to the local chapter of the National Jewish Democratic Council.

This isn't nice, I know.

It's not nice to be happy that someone is dead.

But I can't help how I feel. And I believe, with all my heart, that the world we live in is a better one today because Jerry Falwell is dead.

And I don't know if I believe in Hell. But I have to think that if Hell does exist, a man who said and did the following things is now burning there for all eternity:

• In the 1960s, he referred to the Civil Rights Movement as the "Civil Wrongs Movement."
• In the 1980s, he was a strong supporter of apartheid in South Africa, encouraging Americans to support the government of PW Botha buy purchasing krugerrands. He characterized Desmond Tutu as "a phony."
• In his book America Can Be Saved, Falwell wrote "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them."
• Falwell asserted that the Antichrist "would have to be, by necessity, a Jewish male." Maybe it's me?
  
• After the September 11 attacks, Falwell had plenty of blame to spread, when he said: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

There's more, of course, including the ridiculous "gay Teletubby" nonsense from 1999. But the point is made. This man was a reprehensible, homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic waste of human life. The dangerous part is that he gained a lot of power in this country, and twisted other minds into following his repugnant ideals.

Good riddance, you hate-filled bastard. I hope you're currently sweating your fat ass off in the flames of Hades.

There's your answer, fishbulb.

An addendum to my previous post on Jerry Falwell's passing. Apparently, Falwell gave an interview to CNN's Christiane Amanpour just last week. It was intended to air this fall as part of a CNN special about religion.

During this interview, Falwell mentions that he needs about "20 more years" to complete his work, and brings up the example of Hezekiah in the Bible, who supposedly asked God for 15 more years of life, and received it.

So Falwell says in the interview he's praying for 20 more years, "with an option to renew."

Twenty more years? God didn't even see fit to give you TWENTY MORE DAYS!!

Now, I don't actually believe that God decides when people live or die.

But plenty of evangelicals who now mourn Falwell do believe that. So I guess I'd ask them -- does it tell you something that Jerry Falwell is dead a week after asking God for twenty more years?

Dear Anonymous Idiot....

To the anonymous coward who recently left a comment on my last blog post, I have three things to say to you:

1. Anonymous comments are not published on this blog. I have the balls to attach my name to my opinions, and if you want to be included on my blog, you have to do the same. I will soon post a note on this blog letting cowards know not to waste time on posting anonymous comments.
   
2. If you really think the pollution output of the 18th Century "Industrial Revolution" compares to the pollution output of the world today, you are truly an idiot. The earth's population in 1800 was roughly 900 million. Today, the earth's population is over 6.6 BILLION. Obviously, the industrialization of the earth has increased a thousandfold since that time. Oh yeah, people didn't drive cars back then either. So to compare our output of greenhouse gasses in 2007 to the output of the late 1700s is patently absurd.
3. Finally, if the science of global warming is so suspect and not to be believed, why is the neoconservative AEI offering payoffs to scientists willing to debunk it? I mean, if global warming is junk science, why do you have to bribe researchers to disprove it???? Sure, President Bush isn't the first chief executive to ignore global warming. But as far as I know, the AEI is the first group to try and bribe people to ignore it.
   

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer has a great solution to decrease Americans' dependence on gasoline in his January 26 column: tax the hell out of it. President Bush wants to decrease gasoline usage by 20% in ten years. Adding a dollar to the price of every gallon of gas would smack Americans in the mouth, forcing us all to use less gasoline, and put more demands on automakers for fuel-efficient cars. As Krauthammer points out, it would probably cut our gas usage by 20% in TWO YEARS.

I'll put my money where my mouth is. To save the planet and ensure it still exists for my daughter and her children, I'd pay $4/gallon for gasoline. Of course, I've also made reasonable choices -- I drive a fuel-efficient sedan, not a monster SUV; and I live within a five-mile radius of my work and the places I normally go.

Americans pay some of the lowest gasoline prices in the world. We've been spoiled for a long time. Maybe it's time to pay our share. Europeans don't drive gas-hogging, planet-raping Canyoneros, because they can't afford to -- they pay the equivalent of four, five, even six dollars per gallon of gas.

There's no way to get Americans to conserve energy, no way to get the automakers to seriously make more fuel-efficient cars, then by hitting us all in the wallet.

If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention...

On Friday, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report concluding "with 90 percent certainty" that humans are the cause of global warming, and that the Earth's temperatures are likely to rise by 3-7 degrees before the year 2100.

This report is the culmination of what reputable scientists have believed for years -- that humans have irrevocably altered the planet through the use of fossil fuels, and that we better start doing something about it, as rising temperatures could mean higher sea levels, causing major problems for coastal cities around the world.

Predictably, the oil company-owned Bush Administration gave lip service to the report, while denouncing efforts to enact governmental standards to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere. As if we can trust corporations to just be good citizens on their own without governmental controls, right?

And yet, it gets worse. The American Enterprise Institute, which is a "think tank" funded by ExxonMobil and employing many former members of the Bush Administration, has offered $10,000 to scientists and economists as a payoff if they will publicly criticize the IPCC report.

Because that's how you ensure reputable science, right? Pay the researchers to get the results you want. Sure. It's called the "$cientific method," I think.

It seems that the oil companies learned by watching what Big Tobacco did for years and years. If science doesn't support your position, doesn't support you continuing to stuff your pockets with cash, just lie, lie, lie. And if you can pay some other people to lie for you, even better.

This is what you get, America, for electing an oil company whore to the White House.

A great question for our moron President...

"First it was weapons of mass destruction. Then when there were none, it was that we had to find Saddam. We did that, but then it was that we had to put him on trial," said Spc. Thomas Sheck, 25, who is on his second tour in Iraq. "So now, what will be the next story they tell us to keep us over here?"
(from "Saddam Hussein buried next to two sons," The Jerusalem Post, 12/31/06)

Well, Mr. President? Do you have an answer for Specialist Sheck, and the 120,000 others stationed in Iraq? Do you have any justification for keeping them over there, when nearly 3,000 of them have been killed? What's the next bullshit story our men and women in uniform will be told? That a temporary "surge" in troop deployment will bring peace and quiet to the streets of Iraq?

Give me a break. Iraq's problems are now their own. Enough Americans have died for this ridiculous war. We've done the best thing we could for the Iraqi people -- we facilitated Saddam Hussein's trip to hell for them. He's dead and gone.

Let's bring our men and women home, before more of them die as well.

F**k Martinez (*)

So, in the wake of their devastating losses last Tuesday, the Republican party is scrambling to stop the bleeding.

In an apparent attempt to gather more of the Hispanic vote, Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) has been named chairman of the Republican National Committee. Right-wing bloggers, angry with Martinez because he's not anti-immigrant enough, have called this choice "Hispandering" and "Hispanicking," which makes me laugh.

Martinez, you may remember, was embarassed during the Terri Schiavo mess when a staffer from his office wrote a memo which noted that the Schiavo scandal would help "motivate their conservative base."

He's also a graduate of the same high school I graduated from, was active in alumni activities at said school, and has been obnoxious to my mother, which qualifies him as a raging asshole.

In short, I hate his guts, and hope his political career goes down in flames. By accepting the chairmanship of the RNC (even though it's mostly symbolic), he ties himself even closer to President Bush's legacy of failure. Hopefully Florida voters will kick him out on his culo in 2010.

* Apologies to 2 Live Crew for borrowing the title of their 1990 song, which was actually written about former Florida Governor Bob Martinez, not Mel. Oh well.

Presidential Pompousness.

After the Democrats' stunning wins on Tuesday, capturing the House, the Senate, and 28 governorships, President Bush seemed to take a deferential tone, bowing to the will of the voters. He canned Secretary of War (er, Defense) Donald Rumsfeld, and admitted that the Republican party "took a thumping."

After months of portraying Democrats as being in bed with Osama bin Laden, Bush even promised to work with new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other Congressional leaders, saying this about the Democrats:

"...we do agree that we love America equally, that we're concerned about the future of this country, and that we will do our very best to address big problems."

And yet, it's all crap. Behind all of it, President Bush is a divider, not a uniter, and he always will be. He's a spoiled rich kid who doesn't want to share his toys, because he never had to. He doesn't want to share the governance of this nation, either.

And here's how I know. At Wednesday's press conference, a reporter asked Bush if he was expecting the Republicans to lose so badly, based on the pre-election polls. Bush said this:

"Well, there was -- I read those same polls. And believed -- I thought when it was all said and done, the American people would understand the importance of taxes and the importance of security."

Let me repeat what the President said. Americans voted for a Democratic Congress because we don't "understand the importance of taxes and the importance of security."

Oh, so that's why the Republicans got their asses handed to them. American voters are too stupid to "understand the importance" of these vital issues. We don't have the mental ability to understand that it's important to give huge tax breaks to the rich, apparently.

We don't understand the "importance of security." We don't see how the 2800 American lives lost in Iraq -- a country that had no WMDs, no ties to Al-Qaeda, and nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks -- are making America a safer place.

We're just stupid idiots, according to the president, and we don't "understand" things the way he does.

What a sanctimonious, arrogant prick.

The Worst American President in History

On September 11, 2001, nearly 3000 people were killed in Al-Qaeda's attack on the United States. Of that number, 2,738 were American citizens; the rest were foreign nationals.

Prior to 2001, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are alleged to have plotted the following attacks which killed Americans: the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center, which killed six Americans; the 1998 attack on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which claimed 12 Americans among 235 total fatalities; and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in a Yemeni port, which took the lives of 17 American sailors.

All told, Osama bin Laden can be held directly responsible for 2,773 American deaths.

As of the end of October, 2006, there have been 2,801 American servicemen and servicewomen killed in Iraq. Meaning that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld have killed more Americans than Osama bin Laden.

And for what? Nothing. I didn't count the 340 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan; not because I value their sacrifice any less, but because I believe that fight is a noble and just one, and their deaths should have been for something. Bin Laden is still hiding, alive, somewhere in the caves of Afghanistan or Pakistan. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan allowed al-Qaeda to train and recruit, and so our 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was completely justified, and would have made the US safer in the long run, if we'd ever finished the mission, captured bin Laden, and wiped out al-Qaeda altogether.

Instead, we pulled most of our troops out of Afghanistan before the job was done, and sent them to fight this ridiculous war in Iraq -- one that we cannot possibly win.

I don't mean to focus only on American deaths, either. By all accounts the Iraqi civilian death toll is in the tens of thousands, and that's horrific. But a tragedy close to home is always a bigger tragedy, and George W. Bush has sent nearly 3000 American men and women to their deaths based on faulty intelligence and outright lies, and the end, their deaths will have accomplished NOTHING.

Everyone lampooned the critics of the Iraq War in 2003 who compared it to Vietnam. Well, that comparison looks more and more apt with each passing day, with each American death.

On May 1, 2003, our idiot-in-chief stood under a "Mission Accomplished" banner and declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." On that date, the American military death toll in Iraq stood at 139. I'm sure the families of the 2,662 American soldiers killed since then take little solace in the fact that "major combat operations" have been over for three and a half years. I guess those 2,662 soldiers were killed playing tiddly-winks with Iraqi civilians, huh???

This is why history will show that George W. Bush has been the worst American president in the past 100 years, if not in all of American history. Say what you will about other presidents in my generation -- they were crooks (Nixon); they were ineffective (Ford, Carter, Bush I); they were deceptive and confused (Reagan); they couldn't keep it in their pants (Clinton).

None of them sent nearly 3000 Americans to their deaths for no purpose and for no gain. Because of George W. Bush, the families of 2800 people are grieving their sons, brothers, husbands, daughters, sisters, wives. Children are orphaned, wives widowed, young lives cut short way before their time. Another 20,000 Americans have been injured in combat, some with life-altering injuries: amputations, shattered bones, head traumas.

So, when will it stop? Unfortunately, this administration of crooks, liars, and murderers has another two years to try and further ruin America. But, we can put the brakes on this runaway train of death by putting the Democrats back in control of Congress next week. Let's bring some oversight back to Washington, force the Legislative branch to be a "check and balance" on the Chief Executive, as our founding fathers intended.

For six years now, GWB has basically been "King George," with a rubber-stamp Congress approving everything he proposed. He's only had to use one veto in six years*, for heaven's sake. Congress is not supposed to be a yes-man to the President. Since the Republicans in Congress haven't had the balls to say no to President Bush, it's time to throw them out on their asses.

Vote Democratic next week, and let's start making America something to be proud of again.

* And, incidentally -- let's get enough votes in Congress to override his goddamn veto on stem-cell research. Why is it better to let unwanted embryos go into a trash can rather than a research lab? Thousands of embryos are discarded every year -- let's use a few of them to bring hope to thousands of Americans.

The "Liberal Media."

I never want to hear the phrase "liberal media" again. Because, ladies and gentlemen, it does not exist. The media outlets in this country are controlled with an iron fist by a small handful of soulless corporations. And there's no entity more conservative than corporate America.

Case in point?
NBC refuses to air ad for Dixie Chicks documentary (Variety)

The film "Shut Up and Sing," scheduled to be released on November 11th, talks about the fallout the Dixie Chicks received after Natalie Maines' 2003 comment that the Chicks were embarassed that President Bush was, like them, from Texas. (Although, he's actually Connecticut-born, but that's another story...)

The Chicks received death threats, boycotts, yada yada yada, and "Shut Up and Sing" documents the whole story.

In a letter explaining why they will not run the commercial, NBC's ad clearance department said it "cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush."

Um. What the fuck??????

A private television network refuses to run ads that disparage the President? Come on, that's what they do in Cuba, or Jordan, or Saudi Arabia -- with state-run television stations. What possible justification can NBC have for this? It's not their job to protect the president's reputation. But apparently, they think it is.

ABC didn't have any problems making the "Path to 9/11" bullshit-umentary that disparaged President Clinton, blatantly contradicting the report of the 9/11 Commission and basically blaming the 3000 deaths from 9/11 on Clinton himself.

So that's OK, but ads for a documentary in which Americans express their freedom of speech are not permitted??

It's total nonsense, and this is how the fascist forces in our society will slowly but surely remove the right to free expression from "little" people like you and I. Sure, we have all the "right to free speech" in the world, but if you just stand on a street corner and scream, how many people will hear you?

If we continue to allow the media outlets in this country to be owned by the same five corporations, aren't they really the only ones who have free speech??

How can the media be "liberal" and still such ardent supports of the Bush Administration? The answer is they can't be, because there hasn't been a "liberal media" in a long time.

Click below to watch the full trailer for "Shut Up and Sing," (or use this link for the 30 second ad) and go see the movie when it opens on November 11.

Oh, Alabama should be proud....

...of our ass-clown Republicans:

Take Representative Terry Everett, a seven-term Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

“Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” I asked him a few weeks ago.

Mr. Everett responded with a low chuckle. He thought for a moment: “One’s in one location, another’s in another location. No, to be honest with you, I don’t know. I thought it was differences in their religion, different families or something.”

To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni. “Now that you’ve explained it to me,” he replied, “what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.”

(from "Can you tell a Sunni from a Shiite?", Jeff Stein, The New York Times, 10/17/06. Emphasis added.)

Oh. Dear. Lord. This man is vice-chairman of the House subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence, and he can't even differentiate between the two factions fighting a civil war in Iraq? (And yes, Fox News -- it is a civil war, not sectarian violence.)

This is so typical of the Republicans in Congress -- they've been such a rubber-stamp legislature for our Moron-in-Chief, they don't even understand the issues. For the past six years, if President Bush proposed it, they approved it, calling anyone who disagreed traitors and "unpatriotic." Isn't it strange that Rep. Everett needed a newspaper columnist to explain to him why "what we're doing over there [is] extremely difficult"?

These idiots have to go. And fortunately, it looks like the Republican-majority Congress (at least the House) has a mere three weeks to live. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Torture is NOT an American value, for the next couple days, anyway.

I can't say it any better than Wil Wheaton did in today's post:

"Torture is not an American value. Torture is a totalitarian, sadistic value. Suspending access to courts and the right to face your accuser is not what Americans do. It is what tyrannical dictators and despots do, not a democratic republic like the one I was brought up in and love. Time and again, torture has proved unreliable to prevent or solve crimes, and it reduces our country to the level of the very terrorists we are supposedly fighting.

I believe in the right to a speedy and fair trial for everyone, even the most repugnant of defendants. No, especially for the most repugnant of defendants, because if we, as a society, can't guarantee the most hideously accused among us that right, what is it worth to the rest of us?"

Go read the rest of his post. Right now:
A Statement of Conscience

Wow, I miss Bill Clinton

President Clinton gives the smackdown to Chris Wallace, Fox News, the neo-cons, and President Bush. Wallace brought him on "Fox News Sunday" ostensibly to talk about climate change, then sucker-punches him with questions on 9/11 and bin Laden. Clinton fights back, proceeding to tear him a new one, with intelligence and facts -- two things usually missing from Fox News.

"For god's sakes, follow the same standards for everybody." Exactly, Fox News. This is beautiful.

Democrats defending the devil?

On Wednesday, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez scorchingly criticized President Bush before the United Nations, calling him the "devil" and accusing the president of speaking "as if he owned the world." Harsh rhetoric, to be sure, especially before the worthless UN -- but I couldn't really disagree with Chavez.

What really confuses me, however, is that the next day, some of Bush's fiercest domestic critics leapt to his defense, vilifying Chavez.

"You don't come into my country; you don't come into my congressional district and you don't condemn my president," said Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY).

Rangel continued, saying "If there's any criticism of President Bush, it should be restricted to Americans, whether they voted for him or not. I just want to make it abundantly clear to Hugo Chavez or any other president: Don't come to the United States and think, because we have problems with our president, that any foreigner can come to our country and not think that Americans do not feel offended when you offend our chief of state."

What the fuck? Only Americans have the right to criticize President Bush? Why is that our exclusive right? Bush has asserted his powers to invade another sovereign nation without authority from the United Nations. He has unilaterally decided that it's America's responsibility to fight the "global war on terror," almost completely on our own. Bush has no qualms criticizing other world leaders, or categorizing other nations as part of an "axis of evil."

So if Bush gets to shove his opinions and actions down the throats of the rest of the world, why do Americans get our panties in a wad when another world leader criticizes our president? I completely agree with Hugo Chavez (or did, at least until he started quoting Noam Chomsky), and he has every right to do what he did.

I was really, really disappointed in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), normally one of the fiercest critics of our Idiot-in-Chief, for leaping to his defense in a Joe Lieberman-style move. I still hope Pelosi is the Majority Leader in the next Congress, but I lost a great deal of respect for her when I read this quote:

"Hugo Chavez abused the privilege that he had speaking at the United Nations. In doing so, in the manner which he characterized the president, he demeaned himself and demeaned Venezuela."

Bullshit, Nancy. He said it like it is, and kudos to him for having the cojones to do so.

In fact, Chavez continued his war of words on the president, saying this at a stop in Harlem:

"He walks like this cowboy John Wayne. He doesn't have the slightest idea of politics. He got where he is because he is the son of his father. He was an alcoholic, an ex-alcoholic. He's a sick man, full of complexes, but very dangerous now because he has a lot of power."

In the United States, rich people are getting richer, and poor people are getting poorer, he said. "That's not a democracy; that's a tyranny."

Obviously, Chavez is showboating, criticizing the president because it will play well back home in Venezuela. Still, I can't disagree with what he's saying.

And, President Bush has asserted that the US, as the world's lone remaining superpower, has the power and the responsibility to be the world's "policeman." So if you're going to stick your nose in everyone else's business, you open yourself up to criticism.

Shame on the Democrats for being so spineless. What Pelosi, Rangel, and others should have said was something along the lines of "While I don't agree with the language President Chavez used in comparing President Bush to the 'devil,' I agree with his point that the Bush Administration has made the world a more dangerous place."

As time goes on, the differences between Democrats and Republicans get smaller and smaller. In the end, all politicians are spineless weasels.

They say that breaking up is hard to do...

An interesting quote from a story on CNN.com this morning, "Southern women breaking up with Bush."

"Still, some Southern women remain stalwart supporters of the president and the Republican Party. At a watermelon festival in Chickamauga, in the mountains of northwest Georgia, substitute teacher Clydeen Tomanio said she remains committed to the party she's called home for 43 years.

"'There are some people, and I'm one of them, that believe George Bush was placed where he is by the Lord,' Tomanio said. 'I don't care how he governs, I will support him. I'm a Republican through and through.'"

Wow. This is just as crazy as Katherine Harris' asinine comments that our leaders are chosen by G-d. (I can't wait for November, when G-d sends her packing, then.)

This crazy idiot actually believes that GWB was placed into the Presidency by G-d? And she doesn't care "how he governs," she will support him no matter what??

So if he starts ignoring the Constitution, spying on innocent American citizens, shipping captured enemy combatants to Syria so they can be tortured, she'll still....oh wait, I guess so.

How do you reason with, how do you have intelligent political discourse with, people like "Clydeen Tomanio"?

The simple answer is you don't, you can't. If she's committed to support George W. Bush because she believes that G-d put him in office....well, then she's a moron beyond hope, and wish she and those like her would stay the fuck home on Election Day.

And if there are many more people like Clydeen Tomanio, then America is beyond hope.

Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. The CNN article points out that for many Southern women, the bloom is off the rose when it comes to Dubya. Women in the South have been some of Bush's biggest supporters, at least until now.

We're finally seeing that, even in Dixie, the Repugnicans obsession with prying into people's private lives -- harping against gay marriage, abortion, etc. -- is backfiring. People care more about their paychecks, about the cost of gasoline, about affording a college education for their kids, than they do about peering into people's bedrooms. From the article:

"'I care about job security and education. The things I hear the Republicans emphasizing in their campaigns are not things that affect me or my family,' said [Sandy Rubin, a] 39-year-old mother of two."

Maybe there's still hope. Larry Sabato's "Crystal Ball," an excellent political analysis site from the University of Virginia, is currently predicting Democratic gains in Congress this fall -- a gain of 3 to 6 seats in the Senate, and 12 to 15 seats in the House.

Of course, the Dems need six seats to take the Senate, fifteen to take the House. Things need to break exactly the right way for the Democrats to take control, it would seem. Of course, this is early September, and there are still two months left for President Bush's approval rating to plummet even further, dragging the rest of his party with it.

Suck it, Bush.

Federal judge rules NSA wiretapping program is unconstitutional.

Anyone with half a brain -- i.e., anyone outside the Bush Administration or Fox News -- could see that the NSA's wiretapping was blatantly unconstitutional.

But it's nice to see a federal judge recognize it as well, and also order it stopped immediately. Of course, this is only the opening round of a fight likely to go all the way to the Supremes. Still, it's better to win the first round than lose it!!

Now, the government has the burden of proof to show the program is not unconstitutional; and in doing so, they may also have to release more details of how exactly they've been spying on innocent Americans for nearly 5 years.

Of course, King Georgie tends to ignore the laws and court rulings he doesn't like, so who knows if this will make one lick of difference. But with his approval ratings declining by the hour, Congressional leaders seem to have the balls to go after the White House these days. And if the Democrats take the House and/or Senate in November, maybe the Congress can once again start fulfilling its proper role in our system of checks and balances, and bring the Executive branch's reign of terror to a halt.

(Also, it's a sad commentary on our society that this story doesn't get the screaming headlines on CNN.com; those are reserved for the arrest and pending extradition of JonBenet Ramsey's alleged killer. While I'm glad that her murderer may finally be brought to justice, how is solving one 10-year-old murder more important than a court ruling on the president's abuse of our most cherished freedoms?)

Goodbye, Joe

"Lieberman concedes to Lamont, vows to run in November" (CNN)

Give it up, Joe. The Democrats in Connecticut have spoken. They don't want you. They don't want a Republican in Democrats' clothing.

They don't want a Democrat who shares a kiss with the President -- a President that has destroyed our country for years to come.

They don't want a Democrat who publicly chastised President Clinton for an extramarital affair; yet won't chastise President Bush for sending over 2500 Americans to their deaths in a war based on lies and misinformation; for illegally spying on American citizens; for authorizing torture of captured enemy soldiers, etc., etc., etc. How can getting a blowjob be worse than all this?

Connecticut Democrats don't want a Senator who opposes gay marriage with the same vitriol used by the Christian Right.

Go home, Joe. You've had a distinguished career. Three-term senator, came within 500 votes of being the first Jewish vice president. Nice resume.

But you're done. Don't embarrass yourself and your party by running as an independent in November. All that can possibly accomplish is to split the Democratic vote and hand the seat to the Republicans. Since you're practically a Republican, maybe that's what you want.

But you have no chance of winning. The people have spoken, and continuing to run just shows you as a sore loser, a megalomaniac who cares more about holding on to power than your state, your party, your country.

Go home Joe.

Fuck you, Kofi Annan

This is why Israel has earned the moral right to ignore anything and everything the United Nations has to say...

"A diplomatic furor erupted Wednesday after four U.N. observers died in southern Lebanon in what the U.N. secretary-general said was an 'apparently deliberate' Israeli airstrike." (CNN.com, "U.N. observers' deaths fuel diplomatic firestorm," July 26.)

Go to hell, Kofi Annan. Go to hell for immediately assuming that this is anything other than a tragic mistake.

Annan is ready to give Lebanon the benefit of the doubt in every situation -- begging for Israel to stop the bombing, making excuse after excuse for Lebanon's inability (or unwillingness) to control the terrorist monsters living within their borders. Nothing in this crisis is Lebanon's fault, according to Annan.

Yet, when Israel makes a tragic and unfortunate mistake, Annan immediately accuses Israel of purposely targeting UN humanitarian workers.

Fuck you, Kofi Annan, you useless and ineffectual puppet of the Arab world.

The smartest thing President Bush has EVER said...

"See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over."

Right on, monkey man. Right on.

This post rated NC-17, for language

Fuck you, George W. Bush:
Bush declares a day of prayer

The last thing we need is a dumbass "National Day of Prayer" for Katrina victims, you moron. Anyone who believes in the power of prayer has already prayed for those poor souls, and isn't going to wait until September 16 to do so. Do you honestly believe that G-d cares if we all pray at once and on the same day? Screw you, I'm not waiting until 9/16 to pray -- those poor souls need prayers and thoughts and help NOW!!!

Dubya, you stupid motherfucker. This "Day of Prayer" crap is just one more in a long line of pointless, masturbatory gestures from this administration. Instead of cutting your precious vacation short after Katrina blew through the Gulf Coast, you cowered inside your ranch for two more days while people were drowning in their attics. Were you afraid that Cindy Sheehan might still be out there, waiting for you??

Then, you send your inept moron of a FEMA director to the scene, a man who is utterly incompetent at disaster relief because he's never done anything like this before!!!! And yet, though he let people wallow in their own filth at the Convention Center for two days because he "didn't know they were there," you fly down with your stupid-ass cowboy grin on your face, put your arm around him, and tell him, "You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie."

He's an idiot, and the only bigger idiot is you, the person who put a grossly-unqualified crony into one of the most important jobs in the nation. You and Mike Brown have the blood of hundreds, possibly thousands on your souls.

Fuck your mother too:
Barbara Bush: Disaster "working very well" for poor

If this doesn't perfectly show the silver-spoon-in-your-mouth attitude of the Bushes and their cronies, I don't know what does. Barbara Bush, you fucking idiot. HOW DARE YOU suggest that this horrible tragedy has been, in any way at all, GOOD FOR PEOPLE??? You rich, insensitive, unfeeling bitch.

"...so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them," she said, visiting evacuees in the Houston Astrodome.

You fucking moron. You just don't get it. You just don't understand what it's like to work for a living, to have a house without servants, to have to tie your own shoes and wipe your own ass. Are the people devastated by Katrina supposed to be grateful for this tragedy??

If you can possibly think that living among your own feces in the Superdome and Astrodome, losing everything you own in this world, watching friends and family drown in rising floodwaters -- if you can possibly be so astronomically, colossally stupid to think that this situation is "working very well" for people who "were underpriveleged anyway" (i.e., black), then you are too out of touch with America to even be acknowledged.

And finally, fuck you Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Schwarzenegger to veto same-sex marriage bill

How dare you veto this gay-marriage bill which was passed by both houses of the California Legislature?? This bill would have finally put gays in California on an equal footing, something you promised to do during your campaign for governor. Even more remarkably, the California Legislature drafted this bill WITHOUT being forced to by the courts, as has happened in other states.

The Governator's spokeswoman said: "Out of respect for the will of the people, the governor will veto (the bill)."

Are you just plain stupid? Did the steroids you took during your Mr. Universe days shrink more than your nuts?? This is how a representative government works -- the legislators REPRESENT the people who elected them. If the voters don't like how their representatives perform in the Legislature, they are free to replace them at the next election. This is how America works, Mr. Kindergarten Cop.

You're trying to claim that discrimination is the "will of the people," Mr. Governor. George Wallace claimed the same thing when he stood in the schoolhouse door in Tuscaloosa.

And, the ballot initiative you're referring to is five years old. Don't you think it's possible that attitudes change in five years? Give the people of your state some credit, Mr. Governor. They've seen that civilization hasn't collapsed in Vermont or Massachusetts, in Canada or Spain. Attitudes evolve, and people lose their bigotry over time. The past five years have seen a whirlwind of change for gay rights in this country.

I say again, give your people some credit, you musclebound ass. The people of your state elected these legislators who passed the gay marriage bill. These legislators, who in a majority approved this bill, are speaking on behalf of the citizens of your state.

Of course, the people of California also elected YOU. But everyone makes a mistake now and then...

Yet Another Installment in...

...a little segment I like to call, "What the Hell is Wrong with this Country??"

Exhibit A:
In March, after Terri Schiavo's feeding tube is removed, the US Congress races against the clock to pass unconstitutional legislation to have the tube reinserted. The "Palm Sunday Compromise" is passed on voice votes in the House and Senate less than 36 hours after her tube is removed. President Bush races back to the White House from his ranch in Texas and signs the bill into law at 1:11 in the morning. All to save one life, a life that was beyond saving, a life that was no longer being lived, in the true sense of the word.

Exhibit B:
Today, five days after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, the disaster relief package has still not been passed by the Congress. The Senate approved it yesterday; the House is "expected to do so today." Meanwhile, hundreds or possibly even thousands of people have drowned or suffocated in their attics in New Orleans, or starved to death, or died from dehydration or lack of medical supplies. Many of them have died, I'm sure, between Monday and today.

What the fuck??? Congress cancels vacations, and the President races back to Washington to sign a bill to save one life? But hundreds or thousands of lives don't get the same consideration?????? Why is it taking five days to get a relief package put together for these poor, starving, dying people??

I hate to play the race card, I really do. But I think America, and this administration specifically, cares less about New Orleans because the afflicted residents are mostly poor and black. The President's actions, or specifically the lack thereof, lead me to this conclusion.

And, administration puppets like Mike Brown of FEMA and Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff have learned from the master. Like Bush has done for three years with Iraq, they continue to blow sunshine up our asses, insisting that everything is "under control" and "things are going well," even though that's complete bullshit. See this excellent CNN story on the big disconnect between what federal officials are saying versus the actual truth on the ground.

---

New Orleans is, by all accounts, still a dangerous place right now. The lion's share of the blame of course goes to the assholes who are looting and killing and raping in the city. But one has to wonder....would there be a different set of circumstances right now if, and only if, a full third of Louisiana's National Guard troops weren't in Iraq right now??

In Mississippi, it's even higher. 40% of that state's National Guard is deployed overseas.

And yes, Guard units from other states are coming in to help. But they don't know the areas. They don't have the natural knowledge that a home-grown Guard unit would have. They're going to need to spend more time looking at maps and less time saving lives and enforcing the rule of law.

An editorial in today's New York Times said it best:

"The National Guard must be treated as America's most essential homeland security force, not as some kind of military piggy bank for the Pentagon to raid for long-term overseas missions. America clearly needs a larger active-duty Army. It just as clearly needs a homeland-based National Guard that's fully prepared and ready for any domestic emergency."

If the US Army isn't of sufficient numbers to fight this war in Iraq, our idiot president has two choices:

(1) Give up this poor pathetic excuse for a war, which will never succeed in bringing democracy to the Arab World, and bring our soldiers home before more are killed and maimed; or

(2) Institute a draft, and see how the American people like that. Watch as Bush's horrendous approval rating (in the 40s and dropping), falls even further. See if Bush's hypocritical conservative WASP supporters remain behind him when "Biff" and "Chad" and "Mortimer" are sent off to die in the desert.

Sure, Republicans are all for this war as long as Hispanics and African-Americans are fighting it, and dying in it.

Give me a fucking break.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush wants Michael Schiavo investigated for delay in 911 call [OrlandoSentinel.com]

Come on. Seriously? Can't we leave this man alone? Hasn't he been through enough, having to watch his wife exist as a shell of her former self for 15 years??

So he waited 40 minutes before calling 911. He had no way of knowing how serious Terri's condition was. Obviously, she was breathing and not in imminent danger of death.

What possible benefit does society gain for prosecuting this man? What the hell difference does it make, now, if he should have called 911 a little quicker in 1990?

To the religious right assholes in this country, Michael Schiavo has become the epitome of Lucifer himself. And God forbid an idiot named Bush should miss an opportunity to plaster his lips to the asses of the wack-job religious right ultra-conservatives in this country.

Let's move on, people. The woman has finally been allowed to die and the autopsy results have conclusively proven that she was not capable of conscious thought, that she was blind (and therefore not "looking at her parents"), that there was no shred of evidence that husband ever abused her, and that there is no question the courts made the right decision in letting her die with some small amount of dignity.

Jeb Bush, just like his brother, makes me sick. Two days after the autopsy report is released, when it finally looks like this story might be over, he calls for an investigation like this, trying to prolong his love affair with the ultra-religious crazies who ate this case up with a spoon.

It's going to backfire on you Jeb, and on you Mel Martinez, and on Tom DeLay, and on GWB himself. Polls have consistently shown that the majority of the American people sided with Michael Schiavo. Most people understand that the way Terri lived was not a life at all. Most Americans were outraged when Congress stuck its fat head into this case, trampling on our Constitution in their rush to circumvent the judicial branch of government. Republicans, who normally scream for "states rights," gleefully applauded as the federal government shoved Florida's state government to the sidelines.

What a bunch of hypocrites.

Hypocrite-in-Chief

President George W. Bush is a lying, flip-flopping (remember that term?) jackass who blows in the political wind like a runaway kite.

Want proof?

Over the weekend, GWB inserted himself into the Terri Schiavo case by signing a hastily-passed bill into law. The new law requires a federal judge to re-examine the case, even though this case has been repeatedly adjudicated over the past seven years.

Schiavo is the Florida woman who has been in a "persistent vegetative state" for a decade and a half. Her husband, Michael, insists she would never have wanted to live in such a state -- and it's easy to believe him, since Terri has no quality of life whatsoever. Court-appointed doctors have repeatedly and consistently determined that she has absolutely no hope of recovery.

Even so, her parents continue to cling to vestiges of hope, and have been fighting Michael's efforts to let Terri die. They've enlisted the right-wing anti-abortion community, they got Governor Jeb Bush to pass an obviously-unconstitutional law which was quickly struck down in court, and now they've got the federal government involved.

Despite the fact that conservatives constantly crow about "states' rights," the Senate and House passed this bill that clearly tramples on the rights of the state of Florida. By Florida law, Michael Schiavo has the right to make end-of-life decisions for his wife. I understand that her parents don't like his choice, but in Florida, it's his right to make it.

And, as it turns out, if he lived in, oh, let's say, Texas, he'd have that same right.

Under Texas law, spouses have the right to make end-of-life decisions when there is no living will present (as is the case with Terri Schiavo).

This Texas law, giving spouses clear and top priority for these kinds of decisions, was signed in 1999.

By Governor George W. Bush.

The law signed by our illustrious leader gives spouses top priority. Parents of the afflicted person are listed third, behind the spouse and any "reasonably available adult children."

How can Bush do this? Has his opinion changed so much in six years? Does he now think that things should be "flip-flopped," with parents ahead of spouses?

Of course not. He's simply blowing in the political wind, catering to his right-wing conservative base, kissing ass along with morons like Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) who sell out their supposed "principles" for a few more votes from Joe and Jane Churchgoer.

Pitiful. How did we elect this chimp? Twice?

Al Franken

@ Alys Stephens Center, on UAB's campus. As Bruce said, I think every liberal in town was there!! :)

OK, America. I forgive you. But not your crazy old relatives.

So, in response to my last blog entry, I received this from an anonymous commenter:

Eric, I must say that your blog has become one of my guilty pleasures. Please don't leave the United States. I am curious if the liberal left, of whom you appear to be an unhappy member are dissappointed in the election results or in the fact that W carried BOTH the popular vote and the electoral vote AND was more "popular" than Clinton and Gore.

Suck it up Eric, it'll be okay.

Who is this? I don't know. His/her IP address indicates an origin at PSI.net, which means nothing, since PSI is just a giant ISP.

I am gratified to see someone reading my blog other than my dear wife. I'm surprised that it could be anyone's "guilty pleasure," seeing as how I update very infrequently.

Still, here I am responding to this comment from a stranger. C'est la vie.

I am proud to be a member of the liberal left, a card-carrying member of the ACLU, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and to have a Human Rights Campaign bumper sticker on the back of my Volvo, along with a "Darwin fish." I'm proud to be a liberal, proud to be against the forces in this country that would turn America's clock back to the 1950s. After all, that's what "conservative" means, from a semantic standpoint: "conserving" things the way they are, fighting change, keeping the status quo and suppressing dissent.

I am, of course, unhappy that America made the wrong choice last Tuesday. Unhappy and angry, as was obvious in my last entry. But with nearly a week to reflect on things, the situation is not as dire as I originally believed. And it is certainly not as dire as the "spin" coming out of the mainstream media.

In the first place, the talk of GWB having some sort of "mandate" is ridiculous. Yes, he won the popular vote by about 3.5 million votes. And yes, due to the enormous amount of voters who went to the polls, GWB received more votes than any other candidate in history.

However, let's not forget that more people voted AGAINST George W. Bush than against any winning presidential candidate in history. A shitload of people voted, and Bush got two percent more than Kerry. Not a mandate. He got slightly more votes in a very divided country.

Secondly, this "red state / blue state" stuff is crap too. A lot of Americans find themselves in the same situation as me -- they voted for a candidate other than the one their state chose. A full 44% of Americans live in the "wrong" state -- Kerry voters in Bush states, or Bush voters in Kerry states. (Or Nader voters anywhere.)

This bitter pill is obviously easier to swallow for Bush voters, since their guy won overall. But it highlights the fact that we live in a very divided, very partisan country. America did not exactly line up in droves behind President Bush last week. If not for Americans' hesitance to evict a wartime president from the White House, I believe the Bushes would be packing up right now.

I was still pretty depressed about the election results, however, until I saw this:



Among Americans 30 and under, the choice was clear. Kerry won hands down. Why? A few reasons. First of all, this age group is the most likely to have suffered losses in Iraq. Most American servicemen and women killed in Iraq have been 18-30. This demographic is likely to know people serving in Iraq, and possibly know people killed or wounded in Iraq. They have direct knowledge of the disastrous results of this president's foreign policy.

Next, young Americans don't give a shit about the so-called "moral issues." Although they're only slightly less religious than older voters, young people aren't hung up on gay marriage -- they've grown up in a society that is more accepting of gay people. They probably have gay friends, know gay people in their dorms or at their jobs. They understand -- again with firsthand knowledge -- that if two men or two women get married, the fucking world doesn't end.

And, there's been a lot of talk post-election about the "young voters not showing up." Bullshit!! The media is misrepresenting or misinterpreting the numbers. Yes, the percentage of voters 18-29 remained at 17%, just like in 2000. However, since there were more voters overall this time, there were more young voters as well. The same percentage of a higher number = guess what, a higher number!! Duh!

The more important statistic is that 20.9 million voters aged 18-29 went to the polls this year. This is a 4.6 million increase over the 2000 numbers. In 2000, only 42.3 percent of people 18-29 voted. This year, 51.6 percent voted.

And, they voted overwhelmingly for Kerry. Jesus Christ, even Mississippi young people voted for Kerry!!! I only wish Alabama had done the same.

There is a glimmer hope for the future. I believe that by the time my children reach voting age, the American people will look back at the years 2000-2008 as a modern-day Dark Age, when America stumbled and lost her way for eight years, but ultimately recovered.

We can, we must, and we will survive George W. Bush. Start the countdown...

I can't believe it.

I never thought I would say these words.

But today, I hate America. I fucking hate America.

How in the world could this nation re-elect George W. Bush? After everything we've seen. After the lies he told us to go into Iraq. After he sent over 1,000 of our men and women in uniform to their deaths in Iraq.

He ran one of the most divisive administrations and re-election campaigns in American history. For all his bullshit talk in 2000 about being "a uniter, not a divider," he is the most partisan and divisive president of my lifetime. He plasters his lips to the asses of the religious right with crapful proposals like enshrining homophobia into the US Constitution.

And yet, he wins. Relatively easily, and with a four-million vote margin in the national popular vote? How is this possible????

Blame Kerry if you want, blame DNC chair Terry McAullife if you want, say that we'll retake America in 2008 or whatever. But I don't see any hope that is true.

After the 2000 debacle, I had hope. Both George W. Bush and Al Gore were relative unknowns, and Gore was carrying a lot of Clinton's unwanted baggage with him. Gore won the popular vote, and barely lost the electoral vote (or didn't; since the SCOTUS stopped the recount, we'll never know Florida's votes for certain).

But at least 2000 gave us hope. And obviously, we didn't know about 9/11. We didn't know terrorists would murder three thousand Americans, which is a tragedy in itself. But the larger tragedy is that 9/11 gave President Bush the excuse to do anything he wanted, all in the guise of protecting us from another terrorist attack.

And Americans are so goddamn stupid, they believe it. Still, to this day, opinion polls show that some 40% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was linked to Al-Qaeda. About the same percentage continue to bury their heads in the sand and believe that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, when all the evidence points to the contrary.

Americans don't like to think too hard. Give us a common enemy, and we'll rally around the flag (and the president). Saddam was pretty clearly A Bad Guy (tm), and so stupid Americans lined up behind President Bush. It's like all the drunken, in-bred, hillbilly morons in America have finally found their one true leader, the prototype upon which all other idiots are based.

America is becoming more conservative, not less. While societies generally become more open-minded and tolerant over time, America is regressing.

There were eleven states with anti-gay marriage initiatives on the ballot yesterday. Some of them would even forbid people from forming civil unions. All of them -- all eleven initiatives -- have passed with wide margins.

What the fuck is wrong with America? Why do we give a goddamn care about who can marry? We have real problems in this country -- healthcare, education, social security. And yet our backwards-ass nation worries about gay marriage.

I used to love America, with a passion. I used to believe, without a single doubt, that we were the greatest nation on earth.

Today, I wouldn't put us in the top ten.

If I weren't so goddamn lazy, I'd be making plans to leave this country today and never come back. This is not a society in which I want to raise my future children. This is not a society that respects everyone, treats everyone as equals. This is not a society that respects political dissent and discussion as a legitimate part of the political process. We are becoming a society of conformists, a society where speaking out against the government means you are "with the terrorists."

And it's only going to get worse. It's pretty clear that ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist will not be returning to the bench. How many more justices will Bush get to appoint to the SCOTUS? 2? 3? 4? With a Republican Senate, he can appoint the most radical right-wing anti-freedom justices out there. Hell, he could put Roy Moore on the bench and get him confirmed.

We could be looking at the repeal of Roe v. Wade, prayer in every public school in America, loyalty oaths, the 10 Commandments required in every classroom.

Today, I fucking hate America.

Please, America. Do the right thing tomorrow.

Seriously. I'm not sure I can live in this country any more if George W. Bush is re-elected tomorrow. I don't think I can stay in a society with people who think this country has been on the right track for the past four years.

2000 was different. GWB was an unknown quantity, and Al Gore was carrying a lot of Bill Clinton's baggage around with him. Fine. Fool us once, shame on you. But fool us twice? Shame on us.

We now know what the president stands for. We know that he insists he has made no mistakes throughout his administration. We know that he sees the world through rose-colored glasses; whether he's ignorant or stubborn, he refuses to hear any facts which run counter to his opinions.

We know that he's a puppet of neo-cons like Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld and the puppet-master himself, Karl Rove.

Bush lied to the American people to start the war in Iraq. There are no WMDs in Iraq, and there never were. He's now changed the rationale for the war to nation-building, something he swore during the 2000 campaign never to do. He has vastly increased the hatred for America in the Arab world. He makes future terrorist attacks against America and Americans more likely, not less; for they hate us even more now.

He's a pathological liar, an idiot, and a bumbler.

Let's hope that tomorrow, voters in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota do the right thing and send Bush back to Texas, permanently. (And maybe we'll be done with the entire Bush clan once and for all, too. Wouldn't that be nice?)

Published.

Had a letter to the editor published in today's Birmingham News. They toned it down a bit, making it a little less snarky than my original, but that's OK.

Here's the letter, as published:

There's no country of Palestine:

A Monday letter, "Fence takes more Palestinian land," referred to the mythical country of "Palestine." There is no such autonomous country, and there never has been. Before the 1948 creation of the state of Israel, most Arabs living in that land referred to themselves as Syrians, not Palestinians.

In 1950, Ahmed Shuqeiri, one of the first leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told the United Nations "it is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."

There is no such thing as Palestinian land. Before the 1967 Six-Day War, the so-called West Bank and East Jerusalem were part of Jordan, and the Gaza Strip was part of Egypt. Israel seized and annexed these lands to have a buffer zone from further attacks by hostile neighbors.

As the Israeli ambassador to the United States said on a recent visit to Birmingham: Israel is not the true builder of the security fence. The terrorists who cross the border to blow up innocent men, women and children are the creators of the fence. If there were no terrorists, there would be no fence.

Israel's Supreme Court allows people who have been affected by the security fence to appeal to the court. Recently, the court decided that a portion of the route caused too much hardship to local Palestinians and ordered the fence rerouted. Because Israel is a democratic and fair-minded country, the military is obeying the order and tearing down that section of the fence.

Jews are not interlopers in the land of Israel. There has been a continuous Jewish presence there for more than 3,700 years. Long before Europeans arrived on this continent, when tribes of Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw and Chickasaw Native Americans flourished in Central Alabama, Jews thrived in Israel.

The letter writer has much less claim to his home here than Jews do to the land of Israel.

Eric J. Rzeszut
Crestwood

Activism is fun

So far, 13 people have signed my petition. It seems to be pissing off some people, though. One of the signs in the elevator was ripped this AM, and someone had posted another sign which read:

"SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM: PARK ACROSS STREET"

I assume this refers to Deck 3, on the other side of 19th street. And I'd love to park there. But I'm not allowed with my parking card, and I'd have to pay like $5 a day for the privelege. No thanks.

"The L-Word"

From dictionary.com:

liberal (lib·er·al)  adj.
1a.  Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.

1b.  Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

conservative (con·ser·va·tive) adj.
1.  Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.

---

How the fuck did "liberal" become a dirty word in this country?  Why are there polls that ask, "Is John Kerry 'too liberal' to be president?"  And, more importantly, why do some one-third of respondents to said polls answer 'yes'??

Don't we want to be "open to new ideas"??  Isn't being "free from bigotry" generally a good thing??

Does anyone really think America is so perfect that "tending to avoid change" is an admirable trait?

Remarkably, these definitions sum up our current choices in the 2004 election.  If you listen to President Bush, everything in America is just A-OK super duper great.

Economy?  On its way back up, even though the number of Americans filing for unemployment assistance continues to rise.

The "war on terror"?  Oh, Dubya tells us that it's going great.  Doesn't matter that we can't find Osama Bin Laden.  Doesn't matter that a British foreign affairs committee said today that "Afghanistan is likely to implode."

How about the war in Iraq?  Never mind that we have over 900 American soldiers dead, and over 4500 injured.  Never mind that, three months after our jackass-in-chief proclaimed "Mission Accomplished," insurgents in Iraq are wreaking more death and destruction than ever.  A car bomb killed 68 Iraqis on Wednesday, many of them standing in line to become police recruits.

Let's try Homeland Security.  The 9/11 Commission released its report last week.  Front and center in its recommendations was a Cabinet-level director of intelligence.  Has Bush acted on this, or any of the Commission's recommendations?  No.

Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention, Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) put it this way.  It has now been over 1,000 days since September 11, 2001, he said.  For comparison, the last time America was attacked so viciously was December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor. 

"One thousand days after Pearl Harbor," Graham said, "America had landed its troops on the beaches of Normandy. And we were rolling to victory in World War II."

And where are we, one thousand days after the worst terrorist attack in American history?  Are we safer?  Do you feel safer when you go to the airport?  Or do you just feel more hassled?

Is Osama bin Laden in custody?  No.  Have we announced any sanctions or activities to cut terrorist funding and training in Saudi Arabia?  After all, 19 of the 20 hijackers were Saudi.  But, no, we've ignored Saudi Arabia, and we've ignored Afghanistan for the past year, to focus on this misguided war in Iraq, one we're fighting alone.

None of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi.  The bipartisan 9/11 Commission found no evidence that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had anything to do with al-Qaeda.  The vaunted "weapons of mass destruction" that Dubya insisted Saddam had are nowhere to be found, and even GWB himself doesn't mention them anymore.

Conservative.  Preserve the status quo.  Let the rich keep getting richer.  Let the poor keep getting poorer.  Let the record budget deficits continue to spiral out of control.  Pretend that everything is fine in America, when everyone knows it's not.

Conservative should be the pejorative here, should be the label that politicians scurry to avoid.  "Liberal" should be a badge of honor.

I'm glad that John Kerry is a liberal, and it's time that we who are "open to new ideas for progress" reclaim the word liberal and wear it proudly.

Does anyone really want to "conserve" America the way it is right now?  I sure as hell don't.

I don't have to like Bush to love America

Saw this bumper sticker on a car today. Sums up my feelings pretty well, and leads into something I've been meaning to blog about recently anyway. With Ronald Reagan's death and funeral ceremonies this week, it seems even more timely.

During Reagan's terms in office, I was a pre-teen and teenager. And I was one of the most patriotic young SOBs you can imagine. I convinced my parents to buy an American flag for the front of our house, and I put it out there every day, and pulled it in at night. In 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded, I figured out a way to rig the simple flagpole so the flag could rest at half-mast.

At the time, I was a political naif, believing whatever my parents did. (I was a member of the Teenage Republicans, for heaven's sake!) But even looking back in retrospect, even for those who disagreed with Reagan, it was hard not to like him. It was hard not to get sucked in by his optimistic charm, not to believe (as he did) that "America's best days were ahead of us."

Now, you can debate (as the media pundits have this week) whether Reagan's presidency helped or hurt America. Personally, I believe that his attitude helped. He made Americans feel positive about their nation again. After the sleazeball presidency of Richard Nixon and the uninspired administrations of Gerry Ford and Jimmy Carter, and the depressing era of Vietnam, Watergate, and the gas embargo, this was a welcome change.

But, Reagan certainly gets too much credit for some things. He didn't end the Cold War; the Soviet communist regime collapsed on itself within three generations, and this would have happened with or without Reagan's influence. The leg work to get the Iranian hostages released was done by the Carter administration; evidence suggests that Iran delayed their release 'til Reagan's inauguration day to curry favor and future weapons sales from the new president.

His "voodoo economic" plan doomed us to years of budget deficits; he mortgaged the future to pay for the present. He let the AIDS crisis explode on his watch, and he did very little to advance civil rights legislation in this country. He took millions of federal dollars away from large cities across the country, hastening the demise of the inner cities and causing "white flight" to the suburbs to flourish. Cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago and others have never recovered from this.

Yet despite his faults, it was easy to feel that Reagan had the country's best interests at heart. He felt positive about America, felt that we could defeat all challenges, and that came through in his words and his actions. He didn't lie to us, except during the Iran-Contra hearings. (And, if his Alzheimer's manifested itself early, maybe "I don't recall" wasn't a lie after all.)

I can't say the same about our current Idiot-in-Chief. Dubya and his cronies Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and the rest of those neo-cons enjoy scaring the pants off Americans. They want us to live in fear, because that's good for conservative causes. They want us to see terrorists around every corner, which allows them to pass draconian laws and pilfer our civil liberties. They want us to believe that it's OK for the United States of America to TORTURE enemy prisoners if it prevents another terrorist attack. Come on, fucking torture???? America does NOT torture people. That is about the least American thing I can imagine. Bush talked big, that we were rescuing the Iraqi people from a despicable tyrant. Yet we're treating our enemies the same way Saddam treated his.

Look, I know 9/11 changed America. But I have to believe there's a way to prevent future terrorist attacks without making Americans afraid to leave their own houses, and without turning the USA into a police state. If we have to sell our soul by torturing people, what the hell does it matter that we're protecting America? The America that the Bush Administration is creating doesn't deserve to be protected. And they play the 9/11 trump card at every turn, and insinuate that if you disagree with Bush Administration policies, then you're against America and you want "the terrorists to win."

I love America. But do I love it as much as I used to? No. I don't like what America is becoming in the 21st century. The Patriot Act; the torture at Abu Ghraib; Bush's proposed anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment; talk of reinstating the draft to fight this ridiculous war in Iraq. And that fucking sucks. Bush is souring America for me and others like me. I never would have seriously considered leaving the USA until this administration. Now, if Bush and his minions reinstate the draft, or constitutionally outlaw gay marriage or abortion, I'm the hell out of here.

Just because I'm against this war and against this president's misguided policies doesn't mean I don't love America, or don't support our soldiers. In fact, it's BECAUSE I support our soldiers that I hate President Bush for starting this war. Over 800 of our men and women in uniform have come home from Iraq in coffins. 4500 have been injured, many with life-changing injuries like amputations and paralysis. How many more will die or lose their legs before this bullshit ends?

I love America. But I hate George W. Bush's America.

What a surprise....I'm a liberal!! :)

Where do you fall on the liberal - conservative political spectrum? (United States)
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If a Blog falls in the forest and no one reads it....

...does it make a sound?

Or, more accurately, if a person fails to update his or her blog in months and months, should anyone care?

Blogger has a new, fancy cool design. I guess they're putting all that money from Google to work on things other than free hoodies.

Raya and I saw Julie and Dan get married in Charleston this past weekend. Had a blast. Wedding and wedding-related events were lovely, and the extracurricular bar-hopping we did Saturday and Sunday nights was fun too. Julie has five brothers, and Raya hasn't seen them since she was a kid. So it was fun for her, I think to get to hang out and party a bit with the boys, particularly Jeremy and Harry.

Julie and Dan are off for two weeks in Florida and then the Caribbean, and when they come back, they'll be 45 minutes away from us (in Tuscaloosa). So we're excited about that.

Now, it's time to plan our next trips. Let's see...Atlanta for July 4th weekend with Raya's parents and David. She heads to Brandeis mid-July for a seminar. She spends at least a couple days at Camp Cosby late July with Camp LJCC. I'm going to try and head to Orlando and visit my family in there somewhere. Raya flies to New Orleans in August for another work thing, and then we return to the Philadelphia area for Tom and Thuy's wedding the second weekend of September. And, we'll probably make our annual Thanksgiving week trip to Florida. Phew!!

---

Oh yeah, Raya and each got "new" cars in the last couple of months...hers, a 2001 Jeep Cherokee; mine, a 1996 Volvo 850.

We bought Raya's from CarMax, after having it transferred from the CarMax dealership in Tampa. (We sent Raya's mom to do some reconaissance before we shipped it here.)

Mine was purchased on eBay from a dealer in Dallas; I subsequently flew there and drove it back here, 650 miles. The whole process turned out to be a hassle that's described elsewhere, so I won't repeat it here. Suffice it to say that the people who sold it to me are lying, cheating bastards and I'll leave it at that!! Overall, I'm glad I bought it though. It's a beautiful car.

Happy June!

The ethics of blogging

So...

What are the "ethics" of blogging? Blogs exist in that weird space between publications and private diaries. Not exactly private, but not meant for widespread public consumption, either.

Recently, a former acquaintance "Googled" herself and found an entry in this blog that referred to her in an unflattering light. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't something I'd want to read about myself.

Certainly, I never intended for her to see it. But with the ease of Googling one's own name, should the blogging community refer to people anonymously, or by first names only?

I mean, blogs can refer to anything...embarassing moments, drunken parties, people playing hooky from work, etc. It's not much of a stretch to imagine employers Googling job applications to see what info they can glean from the web. Do I want my friends to lose out on future job opportunities because I mention on my blog how many martinis they can drink in one night?

Of course I don't, and that's why I intend to stop using people's first and last names on this blog, and on my online photo album. These sites are meant for my friends and family only, so last names are unnecessary.

If you've never done it before, go Google yourself now.

Modern-Day Maccabees

What is Chanukah?

No, it's not the "Jewish Christmas."

The story of Chanukah is one of freedom from state-sponsored religion. In the early 2nd century BCE, a man named Antiochus came to power in Syria. At the time, Israel and her Jews were part of the Syrian Empire.

Antiochus tried to force the Jews under his rule to accept the Greek Hellenist religion, the official creed of his empire. He ordered Torah scrolls to be burned, and forbade Jews from observing Shabbat, from practicing ritual circumcision, from observing the rules of kashrut.

Religious freedom was obliterated, and all subjects of the empire were forced to Hellenism. Many Jews chose to be martyred rather than accept a new religion.

Under the leadership of a man named Judah, a group called the Maccabees (from the Hebrew for "hammer") was formed. Heavily outnumbered, the Maccabees still managed to beat back the Syrians in a series of battles and regained control of Jerusalem.

And so, religious freedom was saved.

In Alabama this year, we've won two battles for religious freedom without firing a shot.

In November, a federal judge ruled that Roy Moore's 2.5-ton Ten Commandments monolith was unconstitutionally displayed in the rotunda of our state judicial building. A week later, state workers moved it to a storage closet, out of sight, where it remains.

Later that week, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary removed Roy Moore from office, for disobeying that federal court order.

We have to celebrate even the smallest victories for religious freedom in Alabama, and these were two big ones. We've kicked out a chief justice who believed he was on some kind of mission from God and refused to acknowledge the federal judicial system's superiority. And, we've removed his golden calf as well.

The Maccabees would be proud.

I hate to say I told you so....no wait, I love to say that!!

This is why Rush Limbaugh doesn't belong on ESPN: Limbaugh blasts McNabb on ESPN's pre-game show

He thinks that Donovan McNabb, who has been to three straight Pro Bowls, two straight NFC Championship games, and who was runner-up for the league MVP award in his first year as a starter, gets more credit than he deserves because he's black.

But, don't let me paraphrase. Straight from the horse's ass, here's what the idiot had to say:

"I don't think he's been that good from the get-go. I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."

Now, if Rush is the football fan he claims to be, he knows that's not true. He knows Donovan McNabb is absolutely one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. McNabb's numbers after his first three starting seasons are better than those of Favre, Elway, or Montana.

More importantly, he's got the heart of a champion. Last year, after breaking his right ankle on the third play of a game against Arizona, McNabb stayed in almost the entire game, hobbling around, teammates carrying him back to the huddle after each play. Oh yeah, he also threw four touchdowns!! On a fucking broken ankle!!

So, Donovan got the skills. And being an "NFL fanatic," Rush would know that, if he weren't so blinded by the man's skin color, so annoyed that black men are having the gall, the audacity, the arrogance, to play quarterback, which has traditionally been a white man's position.

Rush must be fuming. I mean, first black people get the right to vote, the right to attend the same schools as Whitey, now they're playing quarterback...

If there were any justice in this world, ESPN would fire Rush Limbaugh's ass today.

And replace him with a black man.

Rush Limbaugh on ESPN....why???

Rush Limbaugh will be a guest commentator on ESPN's Sunday Night Countdown throughout this NFL season.

Why???

Below is an email I sent to ESPN this morning:

---

To: askespntv@espn.twdc.com
From: eric@rzeszut.com
Subject: Rush Limbaugh

I am thoroughly disgusted by the addition of Rush Limbaugh to the cast of this season's "Sunday NFL Countdown."

Despite the fact that Limbaugh is the self-proclaimed "biggest NFL fan in the world," he's not a sportscaster.

In fact, he's a misogynist, a homophobe, a borderline anti-Semite, a liar, and just an overall pompous jackass.

Even though Limbaugh will hopefully not be spouting his extremist political views on “Countdown,” everyone knows what he stands for. His mere presence on “Countdown” indicates tacit approval of his radical, hate-filled viewpoints by ESPN, ABC, and the Walt Disney Corporation.

I will not watch one second of “Sunday NFL Countdown” this season, even though I’ve been a loyal ESPN viewer for years. “NFL on Fox” will have to suffice this season.

And, if a bigoted loser like Rush Limbaugh continues to be a presence on “Sunday NFL Countdown,” Fox and Fox Sports will continue to get my viewing time, at the expense of the ESPN Networks.

Sincerely,
Eric J. Rzeszut

Here's what's wrong with America

(1) After the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines, tells a British audience that she's "embarassed that the President is from Texas," the country-music group is booed at concerts, albums sales plummet, radio stations stop playing their songs, and the country trio is forced to make a tearful half-apology on network TV.

(2) When actors Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon make statements against the war, the Baseball Hall of Fame cancels a scheduled 15th anniversary showing of their film "Bull Durham." The Hall's director says their statements are dangerous and put U.S. troops in danger.

(3) In the aftermath of the war in Iraq, the Halliburton Corporation, VP Dick Cheney's old stomping ground, was awarded a no-bid contract to reconstruct Iraq's oil fields. This contract was given to Halliburton with no congressional approval and no public discourse.

And yet, the average Joe Idiot American is more concerned with #1 and #2 than #3. That's what's wrong with America.

Oh wait, maybe people just don't know all the facts about #3. So let's look a little closer.

Not only is Halliburton given preferential treatement because their former CEO is Vice President of the United States; they're being allowed to direct the reconstruction of Iraq's oil fields even though they have a history of illegally selling products and services to enemy countries!!!!!!

Federal laws prohibit U.S. companies from doing business in Iraq, Iran, or Libya, countries which the State Department says support terrorist activities.

Yet, Halliburton cleverly got around these laws by setting up subsidiaries in countries like the Bahamas, or the Cayman Islands, which don't have those inconvenient restrictions.

The U.S. government wasn't totally fooled by this. In fact, in 1995, Halliburton was fined $3.8 million for re-exporting goods to Libya via a foreign subsidiary. Yet, Halliburton still does business in Libya today. Libya!!!

In February 2000, Halliburton opened an office in that cosmopolitan foreign capital, Tehran, to direct offshore drilling efforts. According to their press release, "We are committed to position ourselves in a market that offers huge growth potential." In Iran. A country on the State Department's terror list. Halliburton is "committed" to doing business in a terrorist nation.

Terrorist activities don't bother you so much?? OK. What about rip-offs?? What about companies that overcharge the goverment, stealing money directly from the taxpayers???

Halliburton has been accused, on multiple occassions, of overcharging the federal government for services rendered. Last year, the company agreed to pay a $2 million settlement to the U.S. government to avoid a lawsuit.

So, let's recap. We have a company that has business deals with American enemies, a company that has systematically ripped off the American taxpayers.

Is this company punished? Are they forbidden from bidding on government contracts for a period of time???

No! They're given a HUGE contract -- without a bid process -- to reconstruct Iraq's oil industry, all because the Supreme Court elected an administration that's never heard the phrase "conflict of interest." And no one cares about this. No one cares, and so Bush and Cheney are doing whatever they want, because they're allowed to.

Well, one person cares. Representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, is outraged by all of this. He has written a formal letter of protest to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, asking why Halliburton, with their abysmal track record of traitorous and unscrupulous business dealings, has been given such preferential treatment.

Of course, he knows why. And he knows his protest won't change anything. But at least he's asking the question. And I'm proud of him for doing so.

I'm also proud that he's Jewish. And I don't think that's too much of a coincidence. Jews are always among the strongest proponents of fair play, of staying within the rules. Yes, he's a Democrat (like most Jews), which gives him extra incentive to accuse the administration of shady dealings. But, he's right. He's on the moral high ground here.

He also knows that countries like Libya and Iran are even greater threats to Israel than they are to the US. Israel is our only true ally in the region, our only Middle East friend that, as the area's lone democracy, is guaranteed not to have an entirely new, anti-American government tomorrow. No other country in the region can say that -- a bullet to the head of any Arab leader would throw his country into chaos.

So Waxman understands the threat and the problem of allowing American businesses to sell products and services to enemy nations. Halliburton knows those rules, and has tried to circumvent them by creating subsidiaries based outside of the U.S. Yet, it's still an American company, and its former CEO is now the number two man in the nation, for heaven's sake. They should be forced to play by the rules, and if not, they should be punished.

Instead, they're rewarded, and no one cares.

There's no freedom in baseball!!

I don't like baseball. I've never seen Bull Durham.

And yet, even so, somehow this manages to piss me off.

The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY was scheduled to host a performance of "Bull Durham" celebrating that movie's 15th anniversary. On Friday, the president of the Hall, Dale Petroskey, cancelled the event due to anti-war statements made by Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, stars of the film.

In a press release, Petroskey said that the statements made by Robbins and Sarandon criticizing the Bush Administration "ultimately could put our troops in even more danger."

Aaaaaaaaghhh.

In the first place, Dale Petroskey, you're wrong. Protests against the war do not, in any way, make the war more dangerous for our troops. American anti-war protests do NOT give "aid and comfort" to the enemy, making the fight for Iraq more deadly for our servicemen and women. The proof is in the pudding -- American troops have had a fairly easy march to Baghdad and beyond, even while protests continued at home and in Europe.

In the second place, Dale Petroskey, who in the hell are you to bring politics into sports, and into a showing of a stupid sports-related movie??? It's just baseball, and a baseball movie.

This is just one example of a frightening trend in this country. Our men in women in uniform are fighting, sometimes dying, in Iraq, to give the Iraqi people a taste of freedom that has been denied to them for much too long.

Ironically then, there is a groundswell in this country to take away our freedom of speech in America. While our society has not stooped to Saddam's methods of shooting dissenters in the head, our efforts are nearly as effective. People who dare criticize the war, or the government, are called "unpatriotic," and are accused of supporting the enemy, of making the war more difficult for our troops over there.

Anti-war protestors are accused of "hating America," of hating our military, of wanting us to fail, of being anti-Western, anti-Christian, pro-terrorist traitors.

This is a pile of crap.

The beauty of our American system of government is that it allows dissent -- or at least, it's supposed to allow dissent. If we bully the dissenters, calling them traitors and accusing them of comforting the enemy, the protestors will disappear, afraid to speak out against the government.

That's when the government gets to start doing whatever it wants, whenever it wants.

An America run by jackasses like Dale Petroskey would be no different than Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Hopefully, we'll stop the madness before it gets that far.

...she was an American girl....raised on promises...

The War for Iraq seems to be drawing to a denoument, with Iraqis welcoming American troops into the streets of Baghdad. So far, we seem to be seen more as liberators than conquerors, though most of the Arab press has been vitriolic in describing Americans as "occupiers."

All is good. As I blogged a couple of weeks ago, I wanted this result of the war. Once we had committed to this fight, I wanted it over quickly, and relatively painlessly for our side. The crushing of Saddam's regime has happened quicker than I thought; definitely, a good thing.

Iraq, the middle east, the U.S., and the entire world are better off without that scumbag Hussein. But do the ends justify the means??

Go read this. Now.

The best, clearest explanation of the issue comes here: "Think of the divergence of interests, for example, between the grunts who are actually fighting this war, who have been eating sand and spilling their blood in the desert, and the power brokers who fought like crazy to make the war happen and are profiting from it every step of the way."

We've sent 18, 19, 20, and 21-year-olds over there to die, some of them captured and tortured first, so that rich contractor shareholders can get richer.

Still think that President Bush crammed this war down our throats only for justifiable, "helping the Iraqi people" kind of reasons?? Or even only for "national security" interests, to protect our country?

Or, does the fact that Bush, and Cheney, and Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz all have connections to lots of companies who have made and will continue make big bucks from this war and its aftermath make you distrust the intentions of America just a little bit more???

If not, you're much less cynical than I am. Good for you.

One....two....three.....F#@$ !!

What a crazy busy weekend we had. From one event straight to the next, or so it seemed. R. had it worse than I did, at least I got to relax a little.

So, I'm thinking about an academic shift. This MBA program is so not me -- I'm not an MBA guy. As I emailed to my brother yesterday, the other students in my classes are a bunch of Alex P. Keaton clones. How can you trust college kids who wear ties to class???

I may switch back to the curriculum of my bachelor's degree, mass communications. Meeting with the advisor in MC on Thursday. Meanwhile, this summer, I plan to work on getting my Microsoft certifications squared away. I need to first get the A+ certification completed; took the first half of that exam last week, easy as pie.

Syracuse won the NCAA Men's Basketball championship last night. I watched some of it, but was distracted by playing SimGolf, and later watching Futurama. The game didn't really captivate me, though Kansas made a heck of a run to get back in it at the end. I just couldn't really make myself care about either team.

Saddam dead?? Maybe. Certainly, if he was in that bunker yesterday, he's dead. Those four bunker-buster bombs reduced that thing to smoking ruins.

Observed on a bumper sticker: It's only for God to judge Saddam Hussein. However, it's up to the U.S. Marine Corps to arrange the meeting. LOL. Maybe, just maybe, the sticker is wrong -- it may have been the USAF that arranged the meeting yesterday!!

The war certainly seems to have taken a turn for the better in the last week or so. The "fierce resistance" and sneak attacks from the fedayeen that coalition forces faced in the south have dwindled, and the battle for Baghdad certainly seems to be turning our way.

The quicker we take control, the quicker our men and women in uniform get to come home. :)

I may disapprove of what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.

On my way down to CompUseless at lunch today, to pick up some junk for work, I saw an interesting sight.

At a large intersection, there were American flags waving from every light post. That in itself is not so interesting, as Old Glory is quite visible these days.

One of the flags however, was not blowing freely in the brisk wind. Instead, one of its leading corners was caught on the flag's bracket itself. So in effect, the flag was tethered to its post by three corners, instead of the usual two.

As a result, the flag was trapped, trying to wave in the wind but with only one corner free. Maybe I'm anthropomorphizing here, but it looked as though the flag was desperately trying to free its caught appendage from the pole. In fact, it looked a lot like our cat Gypsy does when she gets her claws caught in the rug, or in the furniture, pulling and pulling and trying to break free.

Quite frankly, I didn't like it. I didn't like to see the Stars & Stripes like that. Our nation's flag, flapping strongly in the breeze on a sunny day, the red and white stripes snapping in the wind, as the field of white on blue stars anchors the image, is one of the most beautiful sights I can imagine.

Seeing the flag trapped like that made me want to pull over to the side of the road, shimmy up the telephone pole, and free it from its predicament.

But then it hit me. Just like that flag which represents it, America is trapped.

Trapped in this war. We're in it now, for better or for worse, in it 'til the end. As a columnist recently wrote, Bush isn't going to pull out of Iraq like LBJ pulled out of Vietnam -- "he's a different kind of Texan."

But I can't help feeling that we're a lot like that flag. Besmirched, not up to our usual standards.

Trapped in a situation where we're not seen as a strong, confident, defender of the world.

Instead, trapped by our leaders' overconfidence and hubris, we're caught in a situation, where, like that flag, we don't look as good as I want us to.

While I still believe that America is the greatest country on earth, I kind of look on our nation right now the same way I looked at that flag.

I hope our nation has better luck getting out of our predicament than that flag did.

Ninjas love coffee

Classes were interesting last night, particularly my Business Ethics course. The professor threw out her lesson planned for last night, and we talked about HealthSouth and Richard Scrushy the whole time. (In case you don't live in Birmingham, or live in Birmingham under a rock, HealthSouth and CEO Scrushy are under major investigation. Apparently, he's been filing fraudulent earnings statements for years.)

Just like with Enron, and WorldCom, it's the little people that will get screwed -- the employees and investors of HealthSouth.

-----

I wrote a whole long rambling response a couple days ago over at Leoville in response to this piece that Leo wrote, and in response to some of the other comments on his board. The gist of it is this: can you be against this war while still "supporting our troops"?? I'm struggling with this one. I want to be able to question the policies of our government, and question the need for this war. I want to be able to disagree with the policies of the Bush Administration without being labelled "unpatriotic" or a "traitor." I think it's the duty of every American to question everything, all the time. We have the freedom, and therefore a responsibility, to do so.

On the other hand, I want Bush to be right. I want this to be a short, quick, precision war, that removes Saddam Hussein from power with minimal loss of American life, as well as minimal loss of Iraqi life. And I'm not sure it's going that way.

The Washington Post has an excellent article this morning about the pace of the war. The piece quotes senior Pentagon officials as saying that the war could drag on for months, and might require significantly more troops and equipment than is currently in the Persian Gulf.

This is what I was afraid of before the war started. I didn't believe the Bush Administration line that the war would be over in weeks, not months, and Saddam would quickly be removed from power. I wanted the Administration to admit that a ground war to effect regime change is a LOT more complicated than what we did in 1991. And more people die in a protracted ground war.

Now that we're in it, for better or for worse, I want to be wrong. I want this to be a quick, painless war. Even though that will be politically good for the President, I still want it to be true. I want all of our men and women in uniform to come home.

But I already know that some of them won't be, and I refuse to stop questioning why they were sent over there to die.

Randomosity

I've switched this blog, in day 2 of its incarnation, to Blogger Pro. I like it much better than LiveJournal. Also, Blogger Pro has a neat email-to-blog feature that's going to be perfect for the email updates I need to post to the Federation website. After all, the update is basically a blog by email anyway...

"Gulf War 2: Electric Boogaloo" started last night, and there are indications that more strikes are happening now. Last night's attack was called a strike at "targets of opportunity," apparently an effort to catch some members of the Iraqi leadership together in a bunker. Wouldn't that have been great if we had managed to kill Saddam with the first salvo of missiles, and could stop this war before American soldiers and Iraqi civilians end up dead?? Unfortunately, there's no indication yet that we eliminated Hussein.

Earlier today, Iraqi TV showed an obviously pre-recorded speech by Saddam. In it, he railed against the United States, saying that this attack was instigated "by the criminal Zionists and others with their agendas." He also closed his speech by saying "Long live jihad and long live Palestine," doing his best to paint this war as an Arab vs. Jew sort of thing. In the Arab world, I'm sure that's exactly how it will be viewed.

Hell, even in the US, there are some that think like that. As we all know, Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia) pretty much blamed the US Jewish community for this war, though he later backpedaled and said that wasn't what he meant to say. Commentator Pat Buchanan has been even more vitriolic, saying that this war is for the Jews only, and accusing Jews of having dual loyalties.

Now, it's no surprise that Pat Buchanan would make the same anti-Semitic arguments that Adolf Hitler made 60 years ago. After all, they're cut from the same cloth. But this perception that Jews are behind this war, or even that Jews are strongly in favor of this war -- that's incorrect. Surveys have shown that support for Bush's war hovered around 55-60% among Jews, the same percentage of support that the war holds among Americans in general. (These numbers probably have inched upwards now that the fighting has started.)

A friend said to me recently, "We don't need to fight this war -- why are we fighting a war for Israel?" This is NOT a war for Israel. Although Israelis, like most of the rest of the world, will be happy to see Saddam dead or exiled, he poses no immediate threat to Israel. Even if he did, Israel has the most advanced military in the middle east, and having fought no less than six wars against her aggressive Arab neighbors since 1948, Israel knows how to defend herself.

Quite the contrary to what others think, I believe this war could be bad for Israel. In order to show that we're not really fighting a war against all Arabs or all Muslims, President Shrub has been forced to offer conciliatory gestures to the other Arab countries in the region, our quote-unquote allies. Thus, he keeps pushing Israel to negotiate with terrorist Yassir Arafat, to make it look like the US can be friendly to Arab interests. He offered a "roadmap to peace" in the conflict, and is the first American president to publicly support the idea of a Palestinian state.

Look, I understand there has to be a bi-national solution, with an independent Palestine. But the PLO (or PA, or whatever they're called now) under Arafat is in no shape to be leading a state. He's taken the hundreds of millions of American and European dollars which have been given to him in humanitarian aid over the last 20 years, and squandered them. His people live in poverty, uneducated, in squalor. Arafat doesn't really want peace with Israel, because then he'll no longer be able to blame all of his people's problems on "the Jews." His citizens will start looking around, start realizing that they live in the poorest conditions in the Arab world (which lags behind the rest of the world), and they might start wondering why they've lived like this for so long. If it's not the fault of "the Jews," then whose is it??

---

In non-war things happening, the NCAA Tournament starts today, un-delayed by the war. I'll be watching all afternoon, so hopefully work will be quiet and people will stop breaking things for a while.

R. and I filled out our brackets for the ESPN Tourney Challenge, like we do every year. We never come close to winning, of course. I'm always torn as to how far I should pick the Gators to go. Everyone always says, don't pick your favorite team to go all the way. But it's hard for me to pick against them, to write another team's name on the winner's line. Especially this year, when I know they've got the talent to play with just about anyone.

A couple of interesting tidbits from Apple this week to close this blog. On Tuesday, they officially retired the original iMac. It comes as sort of a surprise that they were even still selling it, in this era of the flat panel iMac and the eMac. But apparently, it was still in Apple's lineup, as a low-cost alternative.

But now, it's gone. Say what you will about it's butt-ugly design, the garish colors that it came out in, the lack of a floppy drive and SCSI connectors -- but it's the iMac, introduced in 1998, that saved Apple. Without the iMac, I don't know if Apple even exists in 2003. That gumdrop-shaped piece of junk became ubiquitous. We still have some labs with four or five of the things. I have one on my desk, even.

Then, on Wednesday, Apple announced the newest member of their board of directors -- Al Gore. You may remember him -- he's the guy that more Americans voted for in the 2000 presidential elections, and then had the election stolen from him thanks to our stupid electoral system, stupid Florida, and the stupid Supreme Court.

He got a lot of criticism -- rightly so -- for claiming that he took the initiative to "create the Internet." But the fact remains, he's an uber-geek. Since the 2000 election, he's been a visiting professor at several universities, and has also served as a consultant to Google.

So finally, I've jumped on the blog-wagon. This comes three years after 90% of the world has already discovered and discarded blogging, but so be it. I'm usually about three years behind the coolest things anyway.

There are some definite cool blogs out there, much cooler than I expect this one to be. In fact, if you don't know me, I'm not sure why you're reading this; and if you do know me, it's probably not much more interesting. But, check out some cooler blogs: Wil Wheaton, as well as TechTV's "The Screen Savers" personalities Leo, Megan, and Morgan.

They're all cool and use MovableType to host their stuff. Unfortunately, I'm not that cool -- my cheapie web hosting plan doesn't provide for PHP support. Ah, maybe someday I'll be a real geek and get with the program.

I wanted to use Blogger to facilitate the blogging, because (1) they started out as a small, cool company; and (2) because now they're owned by Google, which even though it's a big company, is still pretty cool. But Blogger is having all kinds of issues today, scripts not running correctly and such, so I've settled for LiveJournal for now, because I wanted to start NOW and not have to wait, dammit. (10 seconds??? Awww, but I want it now!!)

LJ pretty much sucks though, and I'll be switching from it at the earliest opportunitiy.

R. and I went to the Purim celebration last night. I love Purim. What a cool holiday. She and I were among the dozen or so adults in costume. Most of the grown-ups were quite boring, and uncostumed. What's wrong with people??? Why would you miss a chance to dress up in funny clothes, as a mad scientist perhaps, or as Marge Simpson??? I don't get people.

We got to see the rabbis and the hazzan in drag, which truly was the highlight of the evening. Jews are too cool. Purim really sums up everything I like about being Jewish....#1, fighting religious persecution, #2, wearing funny costumes, and #3, getting so drunk you "can't tell Haman from Mordechai," which unfortunately R. and I did not do last night. Ah well.

The funniest line of the night, though, came from a woman who was probably at least 150, 160 years old. She looks at my mad scientist crazy wig, and laughing, asks me, "Who is your hairdresser?" LOL.

---

Oh and yes, by the way, apparently we're off to go to war. I'm slightly disturbed by the fact that so far, the item that seemed to catch my attention most from today's headlines, is that the NCAA Tournament might be delayed by a few days depending on this war. That's really not where my concerns should be, I know.

I hate how the American people, particularly in the post-9/11 world, equate questioning your government with being anti-patriotic, or "being with the terrorists." That's not it at all. We're supposed to question our government, we're supposed to say "What the hell is going on here?" That's what America is all about.

And yet, even the tiny voice of opposition to the war in this country has now been silenced by the Cro-Magnon-in-Chief's proclamation that we're heading towards war. Following his speech last night, The Washington Post found that 70% of those surveyed support the war, even though less than half believe that it will actually fight terrorism in the long run. Once war starts, every American wants to be on the winning side, I suppose. It's the American Way.

Look, I'm not a big fan of the United Nations, for obvious reasons. The UN has been an enemy to the State of Israel since before it was founded, and the UN is so dominated by Arab states with laughable human rights records, it's practically a useless body. I mean, come on -- Syria is on the Security Council? We're supposed to listen to SYRIA??????

So I don't mind the US going it alone, if necessary. But this war is not necessary. Saddam Hussein is not an immediate threat to the security of the United States or the world. He's not even an immediate threat to Israel, for heaven's sake. There are other countries in the world, like North Korea, that present a much greater threat to the US. Reports are that North Korea may already have nuclear weapons that could reach California.

President Shrub has simply not made his case that Iraq is a threat, and he certainly hasn't made his half-assed case that Iraq and Al-Qaeda go together hand in hand. At least, not to me.

What's most disturbing about this invasion of Iraq is that it's just the latest in a pattern of actions from this dim-witted president that stole the White House. He does whatever the hell he wants, whenever the hell he wants, regardless of American opinion or world opinion. He basically told the press that he doesn't give a rat's ass about public protest against the war. He's told the world that he doesn't give a rat's ass about things like the Kyoto Treaty, the International Criminal Court, the ABM treaty with Russia.

The even scarier part is that 9/11 has given the president and John "Adolf" Ashcroft even more leeway to do whatever the hell they want, personal liberty and American freedoms be damned. And, if you dare to question their actions, well then you must be "with the terrorists."

The American press has been completely silent on this, acquiescing to the Bush Regime's plans and schemes. About the lone voice of the Fourth Estate in opposition is The New York Times. Their editorial today nicely summarizes the fact that while the end result of Saddam out of Iraq is a good thing, the means we've taken to get there will cause lasting damage to our status in the world.

What the hell is wrong with students?

Today, in my Pre-Calc II class, we took a quiz, and after everyone had turned it in, he went over the answers, and the methods you'd use to get those answers. We're currently studying a bit of trigonometry, and one of the types of problems we face is in using the Law of Cosines and the Law of Sines to compute the measures of all three angles and of all three sides. Usually, you're given three pieces of info (e.g. one side and two angles) and asked to find the missing three numbers.

A possible kink in this process is that you can compute the requisite sides and angles, doing all the math correctly, and come up with an answer of "no triangle possible." Your answers have to make sense: in other words, angle or side measures cannot be zero or negative; the sum of the three angles has to be 180 degrees; and, the largest angle has to be opposite the largest side, and the second-largests have to match up, and so do the smallest.

One of the problems on the test fell into this category; the computed answers made no sense, as the largest angle would have been opposite the smallest side. From the whiny frat boys and sorority girls in my class, of which there are many, this immediately prompted cries of "How are we supposed to know that?" and "That's not fair!" Their claims of injustice revolved around the fact that the professor had not demonstrated one of these types of problems in class, and thus how could we be expected to know how to solve one on a quiz??

First of all, the fact that the largest angle should be opposite the largest side should be common sense; it is to me. Everyone has seen a triangle, we all know what they look like. Try to draw a triangle with the smallest side opposite the largest angle. I'll save you some time -- it can't be done.

By no means am I an expert at all things math-related; I am dreading the four quarters of Calculus I have to complete. But, perhaps there are some people in even worse shape than I am, people who don't automatically see the side-angle relationship. Fine. But this problem on the quiz came directly from our textbook. Students in my class apparently believe that if it's not discussed in class, the professor has no right putting it on the test. These morons don't expect to have to do anything outside of class, on their own; they want all the necessary information to be spoon-fed to them in class, preferably in the first part of each session, so that they can leave halfway through.

This is symptomatic of a larger problem. Students at this University, and I have to assume college students in general, don't seem to want to learn. As my MassComm professor puts it, "Students are the worst consumers in the world." Here we are, paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars per quarter for an education which most of my peers don't seem to want. Students in one of my other classes are constantly asking to leave early; why? If you paid for seven days on a cruise ship, unless there were some crisis, would you be asking to leave after four days?

The answer seems to be one of two possibilities: perhaps Mommy and Daddy, the federal government, or someone/something else are paying for frat boy's education, and he doesn't really care that they get their money's worth -- after all, it's not his cash.

The other answer, which holds true no matter who is paying the tuition, is that students aren't buying an education; they're buying a degree, which they believe will then guarantee them a job. (Incidentally, sometimes they're right; some employers do seem to look for nothing other than a piece of sheepskin, and ignore the fact that these job-seekers are brainless fools.)

But, my fear is that we're claiming to educate a generation of engineers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, when in reality few of them are actually being educated. And, what many students don't seem to understand is that education doesn't just stop when you get a four-year degree; the rapid rate of change in the world around us ensures that most people in my generation will need to take some sort of contuining education throughout our professional lives, just to keep up.

But for now, I guess Biff and Brittany have more important things to worry about, like when the next keg party is, or what new color of nail polish Revlon put out this week.

Just cross your fingers and hope that in 20 years, if you're having a life-saving operation, that it's not "Dr. Brittany" behind that surgical mask.

What the hell is wrong with the world?

In area where 5 died, guns aren't the issue

reprinted from The Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/27/98

"...the deadly [Jonesboro, Arkansas] school attack, in which four students and a teacher were killed, has not shaken Jonesboro's belief in the right to own firearms.

"'This is a part of the country where it's unusual if a child doesn't grow up going out with dad and grandad to go hunting, and maybe using some powerful weapons,' said Bill Hunter, an Arkansas State Police spokesman...

"'The problem is not guns,' said local criminal-defense attorney David Rees, dismissing suggestions that tighter firearms laws could have prevented the killings...

"Gun-control advocates from outside 'don't understand things quite like we do,' said Rees, who went hunting with his dad at age 6 and today has six guns of his own...'Hunting in the South is a bonding experience.'...

"The 11-year old [Andrew] Golden [one of the two boys accused in the schoolyard slaughter] was a practiced marksman whose father was a gun enthusiast. The boy had been taught to shoot from age 6; he recently killed his first duck.

"The boy owns a shotgun, two rifles, and a crossbow, his grandfather said..."

All across the country, people are looking for answers to the question "Why?" Why did two boys, one eleven, the other thirteen, lie in ambush and murder four schoolmates and a teacher after pulling a false fire alarm to lure the unsuspecting targets out into the open.

Why? I'll tell you why.

How can an eleven-year-old boy "own" three firearms? This child, who won't be old enough to drive for five years, won't be old enough to get married for six years, won't be old enough to vote for seven years, and won't be old enough to drink until the year 2008, is able to "own" a total of four deadly weapons???

Granted, the legal ownership of the weapons may have been held by someone else -- Golden's grandfather, for example. But, the grandfather himself spoke of the boy owning the guns -- whether or not the legal paperwork was in the boy's name seems irrelevant. As far as the family was concerned, they felt that it was perfectly acceptable to begin teaching a boy to shoot a gun at age six, and by eleven, well, he certainly had the maturity to own three firearms and a crossbow.

ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR FUCKING MINDS??? What in the world would possess someone to think that it's a good idea to begin teaching someone to fire a weapon, with the intent to kill, at the tender age of six??

Our society has rules. Rules about children, rules that we need. Children are not permitted the full rights in our society that adults are: the rights to vote, to drive, to drink, etc. Children don't have the emotional, physical, or mental development to make these adult decisions.

But, in Arkansas, most jurisdictions allow children as young as ten to handle firearms with parental permission, and these laws are rarely, if ever enforced for children younger than ten. The schools themselves sanction the marriage of kids and guns; Westside Middle School, site of the massacre, allows students to take four "hunting days" as excused absences from school each year. I'll say it again: ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR FUCKING MINDS???

In a ballot box, the worst possible mistake a child could make would be a vote for Pat Buchanan -- not a directly life-threatening decision. However, even without malicious intent, an armed child could easily kill or maim another person, or himself.

The bottom line is that children should NOT be using guns. Period. If we don't even trust children under 17 to have the maturity to attend an R-rated movie, or watch "South Park" on TV, why in the world would we place a deadly weapon in their hands, and teach them to kill?? It's simply unjustifiable, and every father or grandfather who has ever taught a child to shoot a gun has blood on his hands this week.

These two Jonesboro children are not quite right in the heads; that much is apparent. Thousands of children all over this country, mostly young boys, learn to hunt every year, and very few turn into murderers. However, by teaching children how to kill, and giving them the implements to do so, we give emotionally-troubled kids like Golden, and the other boy, thirteen-year-old Mitchell Johnson, the means to inflict their emotional problems on society, with devastatingly tragic results: Britthney Varner and Natalie Brooks will never see the seventh grade; Stephanie Johnson and Paige Ann Herring will never see thirteen candles on a birthday cake; and teacher Shannon Wright leaves behind a husband without a wife, and a three-year old son without a mother.

Obviously, Golden's and Johnson's families never taught their sons to use weapons with the thought that these weapons might someday be turned against another human being. The families of these children are as devastated as the families of those who were murdered.

And yet, when you teach a boy to shoot from age six, before he even has a firm grasp on the concepts of life and death, and you celebrate the killing of animals as sport, and you praise the child for killing his "first duck," as Golden did recently, and your entire culture revolves around guns, and hunting, what do you expect? You expect a six-year old, a nine-year old, an eleven- or a thirteen-year old to clearly differentiate in their minds between killing a deer and killing a twelve-year old girl?

These boys couldn't make that distinction. They flushed their classmates out of Westside Middle School just like they were flushing geese out of a creek. Wearing camouflage clothing and lying in a wooded area adjacent to the school, they began peering through their scoped rifles and, as they had done dozens of time before, began hunting.

Only this time, their quarry wasn't mounted on the wall of the den; they were buried in wooden boxes.

What the hell is wrong with the world?

Last week, on my walk from work to the train station in center city Philadelphia, I passed by the Judge Lewis Quadrangle at 6th and Market Streets, as I do every day. Located adjacent to the federal building, and across the street from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, it is technically a part of Independence National Historic Park, and thus falls under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service.

Therefore, you can imagine the shock I felt upon seing a nativity scene located on the premises. The sign in front of the display proudly stated, "The Catholic League -- for Religious Rights."

Upon hearing more about this display, I learned that the National Park Service allows the Lubavitchers, an Orthodox Jewish group, to display a large menorah at the quadrangle every year to commemorate Chanukah. What's more, this is all apparently perfectly legal under a 1988 Supreme Court ruling. The justices ruled that privately-sponsored religious displays were permitted on government property where displays of free speech are allowed. This year, the Catholic League obtained the correct permits and licenses, and thus the NPS approved the display.

In my view, religion and government should never, ever, ever mix. Religious displays on government property are simply wrong. In the first place, some people may get the impression that the National Park Service officially sanctions these displays, and that the religions important to the NPS are Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism. Everyone else, sorry, you're out of luck.

Secondly, it always makes me nervous when the government gets into the business of officially approving religious displays. Where would they draw the line at what is a "religion," and what is a "cult?" Apparently, Catholicism and Judaism are OK; what if the few surviving Branch Davidians had asked to erect a statue of David Koresh? Or, what if some members of the Church of Satan would have liked to construct a display of the Prince of Darkness himself? Permits or no permits, I doubt these would have been approved.

These may seem like extreme examples. But, there are some religions that would fall in the grey area between mainstream American religions and wacko cults. It just gives me a bad feeling to think about the goverment deciding which religions are "acceptable" and which aren't. Muslims? Hare Krishnas? Jehovah's Witnesses? B'ahais? Sikhs?

I realize that we live in an overwhelmingly Christian society, and that's why no one seems to be making a big deal about this. And, Philadelphia's Jews, who number about 10% of the total population here, are equally represented at the quadrangle, so the majority of Philadelphians are probably OK with this.

But it doesn't make it OK. I strongly disagree with the Supreme Court on this one; the fact that it was a 1988 ruling puts it during the era of Reagan- and Bush- nominated conservatives, which explains a lot. Fundamental Christians forget that the United States was settled by people looking for freedom from government intervention in religious life. The Bill of Rights starts off with the phrase, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

Displaying a nativity scene and a menorah at Independence National Historic Park makes it seem as though the federal government is officially celebrating two and only two religions. That's just plain wrong.

And by the way, have a happy Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, Festivus, and/or any other holiday or holidays you choose to celebrate.

And if you choose not to celebrate any, that's OK too.

What the hell is wrong with people?

This weekend, Raya and I decided to take a trip into Center City Philadelphia. The annual Polish-American festival was being held at Philly's waterfront park, Penn's Landing, and we headed down to check it out. Leaving Raya's car at the local regional rail station, we road the commuter train into the city.

We had a good time. The kielbasa and potato pancakes were delicious, and we even heard a little bit of polka music. Later, we ventured over to Penn's campus to visit our friend Tom, and he ended up giving us a ride back home, so we didn't have to take the train back.

So, it was close to 8:00 PM before we returned to the train station to pick up Raya's car, an '83 Volvo affectionately named "Bjorn." Imagine our surprise when we found that the car had been damaged at some point during the day; the rear bumper was at a skewed angle, jutting a good six inches away from the body of the car on the right side.

We asked a passer-by if he had seen anything, had seen anyone hit the car. Of course, he hadn't, although he was very helpful in suggesting ways in which to fix it. I glanced at the windshield to see if anyone had left a note, but there wasn't a thing.

Two things piss me off about this:

1. What kind of idiot can't park a car without striking the car next to them? This train station is very underused on Saturdays and Sundays; the parking lot was not crowded or cramped at all. There was plenty of room to maneuver, and I had certainly parked the Volvo well within the striped lines. The parking spots themselves are very wide; there's really no excuse. You'd have to be drunk, underage, or simply not know how to drive in order to cause this damage.
2. Secondly, how can you not leave a note when you damage someone else's car? A glance at the rear of the Volvo made it obvious that there was some damage done; not horrible damage, but still. What really annoys me is that I know human nature well enough that I was not surprised in the slightest to see that there was no note on the car. I would have been shocked, stunned beyond belief had there been a note, had the person had the cojones to admit what they had done.

But alas, there was no note, no claim of responsibility, and thus, no one to pay for the damage except Raya and myself.

If anyone reading this has ever damaged someone else's property and not owned up to it, shame on you. You suck.

What the hell is wrong with the government?

So, serving my civic responsibility, I responded to a summons for jury duty in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia today. Here's how my day went:

• 8:15 AM - 10:00 AM: In an auditorium filled with about 500 people, I watch a video which tells me how to fill out a questionnaire. Apparently, blank spaces such as "Last Name" and questions like "Do you think you could be a fair juror?" are too difficult to answer unaided.
• 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM: I experience, first-hand, the sluggish jury selection process. 35 of us are herded into a courtroom, and are explained the circumstances of a trial which only requires an 8-person jury. After hours of pointless questions with irrelevant answers, as well as a great deal of simply sitting around, the eight jurors are picked. Three-fourths of us are told thanks, and that we can now leave. At least half of us were never even asked a question.
• 2:00 PM: Along with the gratitude of the City of Philadelphia, I pick up my $9 check, and leave, the better part of a day wasted.

Am I bitter? Just a little. To be fair, this is not my first experience with the jury selection process. I also participated in Alachua County, Florida. Very similar results: an entire day was wasted, and in the end, I was not chosen to serve.

My complaints with this process take two parts. First of all, the initial information-gathering stage is colossally inefficient. I realize that the informational video which we are shown has to cater to the "lowest common denominator," if you will. Still, is there any need for a 15-second pause after every question is explained? Does it take anyone 15 seconds to either check "Yes" or "No???" For that matter, is it necessary to explain the questions at all? Shouldn't there be an assumption that we are literate, since we managed to register to vote and/or pass a driver's test?

The horrible, horrible boredom of the second part of the process can be summed up in one simple word: Lawyers. They bloat every stage of the judicial process, jury selection included. For every juror who indicated that he or she had been party or witness to a lawsuit, the entire group of us had to hear the exact circumstances of the suit or suits. All of them except one were completely irrelevant to this case, an automobile accident lawsuit. Wouldn't it have been easier to simply ask if anyone had been involved in this particular type of case?

As if that weren't enough, once the insipid question portion was complete, then the two lawyers had to discuss all of us, and decide who was fit to serve on the jury and who would be excluded. For an hour, we sat there, in uncomfortable chairs, in a silent, stuffy courtroom, bored to tears.

Finally, they called out the chosen jurors by number. Each of us had been assigned a number in some random order, 1 to 35. The eight jurors were selected all came out of the first 15. With a number of 32, I never really had a chance.

The really annoying part is that I would have liked to serve. Half the people in there were talking about what excuses would get them "out of this." I would have made a damn intelligent, impartial, and fair juror. Still, by nothing more than luck of the draw, I was out of luck and out of six hours of my time.

Is it really necessary to have a 4:1 ratio between potential jurors and the number of jurors actually needed? How about this -- if a trial needs 12 jurors, we pick 12 names out of a hat, and there's your jury. The Constitution guarantees a right to a trial by a jury of one's peers. There are no guarantees that "one's peers" have to be intelligent, rational, or even fair. Some of my peers in this city are insane. If I happen to get one or two of them on my jury, there's still ten or eleven relatively sane people. That would be a true "trial of my peers," instead of an attorney-sanitized panel.

A little extreme? Maybe. But then, you weren't the one counting ceiling tiles in Courtroom 625 this morning, were you???

What the hell is wrong with people?

"Ellen" ad denied by Philadelphia affiliate

reprinted from Philadelphia Gay News

Philadelphia's WPVI-TV Channel 6 is one of seven ABC affiliates that will not air a Human Rights Campaign commercial during the "Ellen" coming-out episode. The ad was created to make people aware that job discrimination based on sexual orientation is legal in 41 states. "We simply have a general policy of not accepting issue-advertisements," said WPVI spokeswoman Valerie Staab. 'It's nothing against that particular ad. But we will cover the topic with our news shows as 'Ellen' brings it to a high level of discussion."

The ad features a woman who has just been fired from her job because of her sexual orientation. A conversation between her co-workers reveals that her firing is legal. HRC's phone number is then displayed for viewers to call for additional information. The ad was created by the Semans Co.

The ad will air in 29 markets nationwide.

Affiliates in Chicago, Houston, Knoxville, Tenn., Nashville, Tenn., New York and Wilmington, NC, also declined to air the ad. News conferences in each of the markets in which the ad has been placed, as well as in those declining to run it, are set to publicly unveil the ad one week before its air date, HRC offficials said.

- Scott A. Giordano

Nothing pisses me off more than censorship, especially censorship of ideas. Except maybe homophobia. And combining the two is enough to make me scream.

First of all, it is ridiculous that the firing of someone because of their sexual orientation is still legal in 41 states. Nowadays, with the number of employee vs employer lawsuits on the rise, you can barely fire someone at all, and you have to be careful about how you do it, with all your t's crossed and i's dotted. Yet, you can terminate an employee for no other reason except that they are gay. That's pitiful. Unless they're a hooker, someone's sexual orientation has no bearing on their job performance, no more than their race, gender, or religion does.

And yet, because we still live in a narrow-minded, homophobic society, this is perfectly legal in most of the country. This new "social conservatism" sweeping the nation is tearing the soul from our country. America was founded so that everyone could be free, and everyone could be equal. It took a long time for women and non-whites to realize any equality at all, and there's still a long way to go in that regard. However, this "family values" excuse for bigotry, championed by assholes like Newt Gingrich (who himself has a lesbian sister), is pathetic. Newt and other right-wing conservatives should just be honest and say, "Look. I hate everyone who isn't exactly like me." At least, we'd know their true feelings. But instead, they hide behind rhetoric and soapboxes, claiming that the "American family is in distress," and using the convienient scapegoats of "the media" and "Hollywood" as the culprits.

The American family isn't in distress. It's just changing. Sixty years ago, you wouldn't have found many two-worker families. You wouldn't have found many interracial couples raising children. You wouldn't have found gay and lesbian couples raising children. And yet, these new family units aren't going anywhere. They're here to stay. Pompous right-wingers like Ralph Reed would like to damn all of the "sinners" to hell, and return to an Ozzie and Harriet vision of the American family.

But that's a head in the sand approach. The only way to solve a disagreement is to face it head on and realize the true situation. Continuing to discriminate against homosexuals will not make them go away; it will just make them bitter and resentful towards this society, this supposed "land of equality."

That's why this decision by WPVI is so disappointing. From what I understand, Philadelphia has a large and active gay/lesbian community. People here need to be informed on this issue. My guess would be that the majority of Americans don't even realize that discrimination based on sexual orientation is legal. The HRC ad wasn't asking for "special rights," the buzzword so often used by anti-gay rights activists. Being protected from discrimination is not a special right -- it should be an inalienable right of every American. Is it so wrong to want your job performance to speak for itself, instead of being prejudged for who you are?

Apparently, WPVI thinks it is.