July 9, 2007

White House again to defy Congress on attorney firings

The White House has decided to defy Congress in its latest demand for information regarding the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys, sources familiar with the decision said Saturday. Such an action would escalate the constitutional struggle and propel it closer to a court showdown.

Read more.

Woman Arrested for Not Watering Lawn

A widow and grandma spent the morning in jail, arrested for refusing to give a policeman her name when he tried writing her a ticket for failing to water her yard. The woman hasn't watered her lawn in more than a year, and the condition of her yard violates an Orem zoning ordinance.

Read the rest.

White House Debate Rises on Iraq Pullback

But suddenly, some of Mr. Bush’s aides acknowledge, it appears that forces are combining against him just as the Senate prepares this week to begin what promises to be a contentious debate on the war’s future and financing.

Read the rest.

Metallica: Terrorist threat?

Metallica singer James Hetfield was investigated by UK airport officials who believed he was a terrorist this week, it has been claimed. The star was barred entry to Luton airport on Thursday and questioned by staff who were concerned about his appearance. Fears that Hetfield might be involved in terrorism were apparently founded on his "Taliban-like beard", according to The Times.

Give me a freakin' break. He was detained because of his beard?

Read the rest.

July 8, 2007

Mortgage vultures swoop on US housing crisis

The scams lure owners into signing over their deeds to a temporary purchaser after being falsely assured that they will be able to buy the property back when their financial situation improves. Often the paperwork is so complicated that they do not realise they have surrendered ownership.

Now how stupid do you have to be to sign over the deed to your house to a "temporary purchaser"?

Read the rest.

Feds: Dog fights held at Vick property since '02

Whether or not Vick is involved, this happened at his property. Regardless, this shit pisses me off:

Fifty-four pit bulls were recovered from the property during searches in April, along with a "rape stand," used to hold dogs in place for mating; an electric treadmill modified for dogs; and a bloodied piece of carpeting, the documents said.

...

Fights would end when one dog died or with the surrender of the losing dog, which was sometimes put to death by drowning, strangulation, hanging, gun shot, electrocution or some other method, according to the documents. The property has an aboveground swimming pool, and investigators were seen looking into the pool during the second search.

Be disgusted here.

Republicans Find Fringe Candidate In South Dakota

"I think 'rape and incest' is a buzzword. It's a bit of a throwaway line and not everybody who says that really understands what that means. How are you going to define that?” --South Dakota state Rep. Joel Dykstra (R-Lincoln County) on why the state legislature didn't include those exceptions in its abortion ban, April 20, 2006.

Where did this guy crawl out from?

Read the rest.

The Man-Crush Primary

Describing this attention to the candidates' cosmetic characteristics is easy. Understanding it is much trickier. If all the candidates received about equal amount of praise I might assume that the pundits are simply satisfying their audience's perceived need for some fluff commentary, in between the more serious (and perhaps boring) bits about platforms and policy proposals. But that theory fails when it becomes
apparent that the Republican candidates appear to get a disproportionate share of praise. Note that my informal survey deliberately excluded the comments by right-wing pundits Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. If these were added the picture would look even more skewed towards benefiting the Republican candidates.


Read about this "important" Presidential characteristic here. What hogwash.

IPhone Battery-Replacement Plan Draws Flak

Users would have to submit their iPhone to Apple for battery service. The service will cost users $79, plus $6.95 for shipping, and will take three business days.

$85?

Oh, and you can get a "loaner" iPhone for $29 while they have yours.

Not cool, Apple.

Get jobbed...uh, I mean robbed here.

How a 'fourth tier' religious law school infiltrated the US Government

It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that many people are beginning to wonder whether America is on a downward slope towards its own form of Sharia, where secular matters are governed by religious law, especially when an increasing number of legal posts are being filled by students from one poorly regarded faith-based law school. Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Virginia, has roughly 500 students and is ranked at the rock bottom as a “fourth tier” law school in an authoritative survey published by U.S. News & World Report.

Read the rest.

Look for life not as we know it, U.S. report urges

Extraterrestrial life may well be so weird we would not immediately recognize it, and scientists looking for alien life should be seeking the unfamiliar as well as the familiar, experts advised.

They said Friday that NASA'S current approach to "follow the water" works well if the assumption is that life everywhere is just like life is on Earth--based on water, carbon and DNA.

But the "life as we know it" approach could easily miss something exotic, the National Academy of Sciences panel advised.

Duh.

Why must humans assume that all life in the universe (which is something we know very little about anyway) must be similar to life on Earth?

Learn more.

Bush Lays Ground For Back Door Draft

This muster order shows again that the Bush administration is getting increasingly more desperate to find people willing to serve and that they are now seriously considering converting the IRR to another reserve pool in an effort to continue their failed policies. The fact that they lied about the scale of this muster has angered many veterans especially after the military has issued countless stop-loss orders preventing people from leaving the service after their active duty contract had ended. Many veterans feel as if they have been betrayed and lied to by the Bush administration and have openly stated that they will not participate in the muster or return to active duty if recalled from the IRR.

Feel the draft here.

Judges OK warrantless monitoring of Web use

Another wonderful day...

Apparently: Privacy rules don't apply to Internet messages, court says

Isn't that great?

Federal agents do not need a search warrant to monitor a suspect's computer use and determine the e-mail addresses and Web pages the suspect is contacting, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

...

The ruling "further erodes our privacy," the attorney said. "The great political marketplace of ideas is the Internet, and the government has unbridled access to it."

Learn more.

Lessons Bush Learned from Hitler

Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death.

--Adolf Hitler

Bush learned how to rule ruthlessly though he is hated by the people. Hitler never got more than 37 percent of the vote in several elections called over a short period of time ending with the act of terrorism that Hitler would exploit to consolidate his dictatorship. That act was the Reichstag Fire, Hitler's 911. It's hard to imagine that anyone would dare go back to the well given the press "Reichstag" gets. Nevertheless, the tactic, having proved successful for Nazis would be tried again. No one ever accused Bush of being imaginative. His gang would simply repeat a tired, old Nazi tactic and expect the people to go along. And, for the most part, the people did precisely that.

Read the rest.

Goebbels Would be Proud.

How did it get like this? How does it continue? Yes, corporations are running the show and that guarantees fascism; that’s how fascism happens. Yes, the leaders are all in hock to the money men. You can’t get elected if you don’t have the money. Yes, the people aren’t as bright as they once were and that isn’t saying much. Yes, the glitter
of bright shiny plastic and the star power veneer of bimbo and bozo celebrity as well as the gangsta soundtrack make what should embarrass a borderline intellect look hot, but, what’s the real problem?

The real problem is the hydra headed Bitch Media. The real problem is who is controlling the appearance and flow of information; the perception of reality. Goebbels would indeed be proud.

...

Try an experiment and listen, attentively, to mainstream radio and TV news for a couple of days with the intention of getting a feel for what it is determined that you should hear. What do you hear?


Read more.

Errant Afghan civilian deaths surge

After more than five years of increasingly intense warfare, the conflict in Afghanistan reached a grim milestone in the first half of this year: U.S. troops and their NATO allies killed more civilians than insurgents did, according to several independent tallies.

Read the rest.

EU pours £3.8bn into 'brainwashing campaign'

Well, isn't this nice.

The European Union is spending £3.8 billion a year on "propaganda" to win over its sceptical citizens, it is claimed.

As well as publishing a plethora of pamphlets and employing an army of public relations staff, the EU has spent hundreds of millions of pounds on teaching aids, school trips and even cartoons.

According to Lee Rotherham, the author of a new book which examines the EU's
spending on its image, such initiatives are an "outrageous and cynical attempt to brainwash the young". The Europa Diary, a gift from the EU to schoolchildren, is one example cited by Mr Rotherham in Hearts & Minds: the Tax-funded PR Campaign to Make us Love Brussels.

Get brainwashed here.

Chinese city bans anonymous web postings

A Chinese city plans to ban anonymous online postings after Internet users successfully campaigned to stop completion of a chemical factory.

Because we can't have the people standing up for what they believe is right.

Read the rest.

July 6, 2007

Fox News: Universal Healthcare Breeds Terrorists

Today on Fox News’s Your World With Neil Cavuto, National Review Online columnist Jerry Bowyer attacked Michael Moore’s movie SiCKO and its positive portrayal of the health care in countries such as Britain and France. He argued that national health care systems are breeding grounds for terrorists because they are “bureaucratic.” “I think the terrorists have shown over and over again…they’re very good at gaming the system with bureaucracies,” said Bowyer.

Stay scared people! Emmanuel Goldstein...um, I mean Osama bin Laden's gonna get ya!

Read the rest and see the pic here.

Releasing Libby protects Bush & Cheney

I asked former Ambassador Joe Wilson what he thought about the commutation. It was his 2003 opinion piece that refuted Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa. In retaliation, the White House leaked his wife, Valerie Plame's, name and CIA identity.

Wilson said, "It casts a cloud of suspicion over the president and begs the question whether the president is participating in an ongoing obstruction of justice and cover-up of criminal activity within the White House." I asked him how: "By ensuring that Libby will have no incentive to talk with the special prosecutor."

The whole point.

Read the rest.

Pentagon Understates War Casualties, Says Veterans Group

But documents obtained by Veterans for Common Sense through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal the number of casualties to be much higher.

According to these documents, as of June 30, 2007, US casualties in Afghanistan totaled closer to 7,500 (killed, wounded, injured, and medically evacuated). In Iraq, the total is almost 58,000.

Learn more.

Some say defense project is unnecessary

For the second year in a row the Pentagon has insisted that it doesn't need another engine for its next-generation fighter jet. And again, Senator Edward M. Kennedy and other powerful lawmakers are forcing it to build one anyway.

And we allow them to continue to get away with such shit.

Read the rest.

Experts: Pills becoming the new marijuana on campus

The prescription drugs allegedly found in Al Gore III's possession this week are favorites among young people, according to drug abuse experts, who say prescription drugs may soon overtake street drugs in popularity.



Read the rest.

Experts: Pills becoming the new marijuana on campus

The prescription drugs allegedly found in Al Gore III's possession this week are favorites among young people, according to drug abuse experts, who say prescription drugs may soon overtake street drugs in popularity.

Read the rest.

Brutal: Teen Gang Forces Mom, 12-Year-Old Son to Have Sex

According to police, a group of teens cut the mother and son with sharp objects, broke a plate over the boy's head, poured cleaning solution into his eyes and forced him at gunpoint to participate in the sexual assault.

And this is the world we live in.

Here's the link. There's video.

July 5, 2007

ABC News Accused Of Aiding Terrorists

And this is the world we live in:

ABC News has been accused of aiding potential terrorists after a news article that discussed why the attempted terror attacks on the UK were unsuccessful led to many angry readers claiming the the company was educating future car bombers on how to better hone their techniques.

WTF?

More Drivers Sue Over 'Hot Fuel' Losses

The lawsuits allege that higher temperatures of gasoline cost consumers between 3 and 9 cents a gallon extra at the pump.

The litigation seeks to force the oil industry to install gas pumps that have temperature-compensation equipment.

Get ripped off at the pump here.

Oldest DNA ever recovered shows warmer planet: report

Scientists who probed two kilometers (1.2 miles) through a Greenland glacier to recover the oldest plant DNA on record said Thursday the planet was far warmer hundreds of thousands of years ago than is generally believed.

...

They also indicated that during the last period between ice ages, 116,000-130,000 years ago, when temperatures were on average 5 C (9 F) higher than now, the glaciers on Greenland did not completely melt away.

Learn more.

Poll: Majorities say income gap too wide

Income differences in the U.S. are too stark, and the government should provide jobs and training for those having a tough time, according to majorities in a national poll released Thursday.

About seven in 10 said discrepancies between income levels are too large, a sentiment voiced by nearly two-thirds of those from households earning at least $80,000 a year, the survey said. Three-fourths of people earning less than $80,000 agreed.

Read the rest.

You gotta love priorities

The same country that lets Libby go arrests Mississippi book store owners for selling "illegal" sex toys:


"They just started taking boxes," Charles Hobby said. "Some of those boxes, I understand, had lotions, massage oils."


The horror! So maybe the answer to getting Libby in prison is to catch him using a butt plug in a southern state.



Here's the link.

Anti-Piracy Gang Launches their own Video Download Site to Trap People

Media Defender, a notorious anti piracy gang working for the MPAA, RIAA and several independent media production companies, just launched their very own video upload service called “miivi.com”. The sole purpose of the site is to trap people into uploading copyrighted material, and bust them for doing so.

Get trapped here.

On July 4, Put Away the Flags

Is not nationalism -- that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder -- one of the great evils of our time?

Um. Yeah.

Read the rest.

Working Assets: Boycott the iPhone

In spite of its hot consumer appeal, the recently released iPhone comes with a major flaw: If you buy one, your carrier will be locked into service with AT&T, a major telecom player that worked with the Bush administration after 9/11.

...

Working Assets argued that if consumers who wanted the iPhone but didn't want a service carrier with unsavory corporate practices, such as "turning consumers' information over to the National Security Agency without warrants, their efforts to wipe out net neutrality, or the close-to-100% Republican giving of their new chairman," they would be "out of luck."

Pointing out that it is "perfectly legal, according to a recent decision from the U.S. Register of Copyrights, for American consumers to unlock their phones for use on whatever network they would like," and that "Apple is trying to take away that right by locking the iPhone to AT&T's network," Working Assets urged its list of activist/customers and online audience to sign a petition telling Steve Jobs to allow for open access to the iPhone on other phone networks.

Read the rest.

How to meet and marry a billionaire

Now isn't this what all women strive for? Please.

Work hard, take risks, maybe build your own business. That's the traditional route to financial success. Of course, there's another highly traditional path to acquiring wealth that isn't talked about quite as much these days: Marry money.

Real money. As in not a mere millionaire (a dime a dozen these days) but an honest-to-goodness billionaire - make that 10 figures after the dollar sign, please.

And this from Money Magazine.

Read the rest.

You gotta love priorities

The same country that lets Libby go arrests Mississippi book store owners for selling "illegal" sex toys:

"They just started taking boxes," Charles Hobby said. "Some of those boxes, I understand, had lotions, massage oils."

The horror! So maybe the answer to getting Libby in prison is to catch him using a butt plug in a southern state.

Here's the link.

Washington State to set medical marijuana limits

Now, after years of attempts to amend the law, the state Health Department has been ordered to spell out how much marijuana makes up that theoretical two-month cache.

...

If the law is going to be changed, dissenters would rather see stronger protection from arrest or an allowance for group growing operations. Defining the 60-day supply, they say, is a do-nothing compromise aimed mostly at pleasing law enforcement.

Read more.

New Missouri law protects killing of intruders

Gov. Matt Blunt signed legislation on Tuesday allowing Missourians to fatally shoot intruders without fear of prosecution or lawsuits.

Read more.

Bush braces Americans for prolonged struggle in Iraq

President Bush yesterday used a July Fourth speech to airmen in West Virginia to brace Americans for another year of war in Iraq, saying the U.S. struggled for six years in the Revolutionary War to win independence from Britain.

And that war has what exactly to do with this one?

Throw up here.

Plague of bioweapons accidents afflicts the US

Deadly germs may be more likely to be spread due to a biodefence lab accident than a biological attack by terrorists.

Plague, anthrax, Rocky Mountain spotted fever - these are among the bioweapons some experts fear could be used in a germ warfare attack against the US. But the public has had near-misses with those diseases and others over the past five years, ironically because of accidents in labs that were working to defend against bioterrorists. Even worse, they may be only the tip of an iceberg.

"What a wonderful world..."

Learn more.

Oil a factor in Australian role in Iraq: minister

Oil is a key factor keeping Australian troops in the US-led war in Iraq, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said Thursday, before his boss Prime Minister John Howard sharply contradicted him.

Nelson's startling comments caused an immediate stir in Australia, one of the United States' few major allies in the increasingly unpopular war, but Howard quickly backed away from the explosive contention.

As if you didn't already know.

Read the rest.

Congress seeks hearing on Cheney’s role in water diversion

On June 27, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), along with 35 California and Oregon members of Congress, called for congressional hearings on Vice President Dick Cheney’s involvement in the political decision that killed 80,000 spawning salmon. They made this request to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-WV) after a Washington Post investigative report found that Cheney pressured mid-level bureaucrats in the Department of Interior to divert water from the Klamath River Basin for political gain.

Learn more.

Bush Filed a Motion Last Year to Uphold the 33-Month Sentence of Victor Rita, a 24-Year Marine Corps Vet Convicted on Same Crimes as Libby

Tony Snow said that President Bush decided to commute Scooter Libby’s two and a half year-prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice, because it was “excessive.”

Yet last year the Bush Administration filed a “friend-of-the-court brief” with the Supreme Court, in an attempt to uphold a lower court’s ruling that a 33-month prison sentence for Victor Rita, who was convicted of the same exact charges, perjury and obstruction of justice, was “reasonable.”

Now isn't that interesting?

Read the rest.

One out of Two Hospitals Chooses Hugs or Halo to Protect Their Infants

Welcome to Xmark, the new corporate identity for our healthcare security products. Our new name emphasizes our focus on healthcare security. You may have known us under the eXI or VeriChip brand, but we are now bringing all our products under the Xmark name.

Isn't that special?

Learn more.

Allergic US employee sues to ban perfume at work

An office worker for the US city of Detroit is suing for her colleagues to be banned from wearing perfume which gives her such severe headaches, nausea and coughing fits that she must leave work.

Read the rest.

Olbermann Asks Bush Cheney to Resign 7.03.07

Kansas Shoppers Step Over Dying Woman

As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said.

...

Police have refused to release the video, saying it is part of their investigation.

"It was tragic to watch," police spokesman Gordon Bassham said Tuesday. "The fact that people were more interested in taking a picture with a cell phone and shopping for snacks rather than helping this innocent young woman is, frankly, revolting."

Humanity falls faster.

Read the rest.

'Free' energy technology goes on display

Technology developed by an Irish firm that allegedly defies basic laws of physics to produce free power today goes on public display for the first time.

Steorn is challenging worldwide cynicism over its claims to have stumbled upon a revolutionary discovery that creates clean, constant energy and could end the global fuel crisis.

Learn more.

July 4, 2007

Most in Poll Believe Gays Can't Change

A majority of Americans believe that gays and lesbians could not change their sexual orientation even if they wanted to, according to results of a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday.

It's the first time in a CNN poll the majority has held that belief regarding homosexuality.

Read the rest.

Update: Since this posting was getting quite a discussion going I thought I'd repost it.

Attorneys see irony in Libby case

President Bush knew what he was getting in 2001 when he made Reggie B. Walton one of his first picks for a seat on the federal bench: a tough-on-crime judge with a reputation for handing down stiff sentences.

A former deputy drug adviser, federal prosecutor and Superior Court judge, Walton seemed a perfect fit for the new president. And Walton didn't disappoint, proving to be exactly the kind of no-nonsense judge Bush was looking for.

Until now.

When erasing former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case, Bush said Walton was being too harsh.

Read the rest.

Men line up to get something off their chests

According to the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons, a record number of men are having plastic surgery to reduce the size of their breasts.

Get rid of your "moobs" here.

'Women shouldn't drink alcohol'

WOMEN of child-bearing age should not drink alcohol just in case they fall pregnant, according to Tasmania's children's commissioner.

Children's Commissioner Paul Mason said pregnant women who drank starved their babies of oxygen and risked their being born with smaller brains and life-long problems.

Read the rest.

Dead on the Fourth of July

Fly your flags, all you patriots; it’s another Fourth of July! Fire up the barbecues, ice up the beer and get ready to celebrate another Independence Day in the good old USA. And be sure not to miss the fabulous fireworks that so majestically explode in the night sky to the music of God Bless America. Makes you proud, doesn’t it?

And oh, while you’re at it, don’t give a moment’s thought to the men and women fighting the Bush/PNAC wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You know, the troops who are out there supposedly fighting for your freedom, or for an end to terror, or for regime change, or for Iraqi liberation, or for the spread of democracy, or for oil, or for George Bush and Dick Cheney or whatever. Don’t let them spoil your fun. After all, it’s a holiday. Enjoy.

Heck, it’s a war, and people die, right? Have another hot dog. So what if nearly 3,600 Americans and nearly 300 ‘coalition’ forces are dead on this Fourth of July? So what if hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis are dead on this Fourth of July? So what if tens of thousands of young men and women are no longer whole in mind and body? It’s a holiday. Play ball.

Yeah, it’s been a bloody few months, - the worst, in fact, since that other amazing fireworks show called Shock and Awe. Do you even remember that spectacular night? Never mind, it’s party time in America. Don’t let images of innocent people being blown to bits get in the way of your fun. Don’t get upset about a needless war that has been raging for more than four years with no end in sight. Just go for a swim on this lovely day. And tomorrow is a workday. Damn.

Celebrate here.

On His Last Day in Office, Bush Will Pardon Himself and Cheney

Never before has an American president tried to impose secret courts, secret trials, secret files and secret charges, using secret forms of what the civilized world calls torture, often without the right to counsel, often imprisoning and torturing detainees without filing charges.

Never before has an American president had a vice president who boasts about working on the dark side, and conducts a virtual super-secret government from the vice president’s office while he desperately tries to keep truth from law, and bullies and intimidates those who disagree.

...

Congress should call the leading constitutional authorities in the nation, and devise a series of subpoenas to directly call the president and the vice president to testify on matters that could involve violations of law. This would lead to a historic test case that would decide, once and for all, whether Thomas Paine was right when he stated that in monarchies the king is law, but in America, the law is king.

Read the rest.

Government UFO Lies

By Stanton Friedman.

For almost sixty years the public has been hearing about flying saucers and then UFOs. Press coverage has ebbed and flowed, but polls have always shown a very high awareness score. Motion pictures, tabloids, and TV programs have picked up the slack with a mélange of fiction and some truth. Unfortunately, much of what we have been told by the “powers that be” has been false. Many different government agencies have shared in the misrepresentation and have provided outright LIES as well. These include the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, United States Air Force, etc. The press and certain other academic and supposedly scientific groups, such as SETI (Silly Effort To Investigate) have often blindly accepted and promulgated nonsense without any effort to get at truth. Hopefully, the LIES presented in this paper will help cause these protectors of the public to do their job: seek and present truth.

Read the rest.

Carry on yawning - it will help keep you awake

A study has found that when you yawn, the inhaled air reduces the temperature of vessels in the nasal cavity, allowing cooled blood to be sent to the brain.

This chills the brain, making it more alert and able to perform better.

Learn more.

RECRUITMENT LIES

While recruiters tell students that they can receive $70,000 for college through the Montgomery GI Bill, the average payout to veterans is only $2,151. To be eligible for educational benefits, soldiers must commit to serving three years on active duty and must also pay a nonrefundable “deposit” to the military of $100 a month for a year. Considering that only 43% of the soldiers who sign up for the program receive any money, the majority who seek financial assistance through the GI Bill actually end up paying the military $1,200 and get nothing in return. And a soldier who does get the average payment of $2,151 actually receives only $951 beyond his or her own contribution. Only 15% of all recruits graduate with a four-year degree.

Read the rest as the article discusses many more lies.

Girl could give birth to her sister

A seven year old girl could one day give birth to her biological half brother or half sister after her mother became the first woman to donate eggs to her infertile daughter.

Read the rest.

July 3, 2007

Iraq draws up plans for privatisation gold rush

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that officials from the government have recently held talks with banking and legal advisers in London. City sources said Iraq's minister for industry, Fawzi Hariri, was looking to appoint advisers to draw up a memorandum of understanding to sell off the country's non-oil assets, ranging from petrochemical plants to construction companies, hotels and airlines, as early as this month.

Read the rest.

NYC man held for reciting 1st Amendment

Reverend Billy, whose real name is Bill Talen, was joined by women in red choir robes who sang a hymn version of the amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech. Other activists distributed an amateur videotape of his arrest.

Read more.

GRRR! Pop Culture Fireworks on the 4th

The point is America is tiring of the rich and famous throwing it all away on drugs, alcohol and a general malaise and contempt for the work that is needed to sustain fame and fortune.

Read the rest.

Why do we hate them?

Blair has just left the PM office, thank God for that, however, this country is now on the brink of moral collapse. Its civil rights system is under severe threat. Politicians of all parties are calling for tougher detention laws. The possibility of mass deportation of new immigrants doesn’t look like a remote nightmare. Yet, most worrying is the role of the ‘free’ media in this country. The leading papers and TV are succumbing quite willingly to the official Government line of thinking. It’s something that reminds me too much of the recruited media in my doomed homeland, the place I left thirteen years ago.

I find myself wondering, how dare the media ask ‘why do they hate us?’ Don’t they know the answer? Don’t we know the answer? Weren’t we the ones who demolished Iraq? Wasn’t it our PM, Tony Blair, who gave a green light to the Israelis to flatten Lebanon? Wasn’t it Tony Blair’s government who dismissed the democratically elected Hamas in Palestine? Wasn’t it Blair who allowed the Israelis to starve Gaza?

For those who still fail to realise, to kill is rather simple, to turn towns into piles of rubble isn’t that complicated either. Yet, to raise a child may take a few years, to build a city takes hundreds of years and to establish harmony between human beings takes thousand of years. We should stop lying to others and to ourselves. We know perfectly well why they hate us, they have some good reasons, as things stand momentarily, we are the ones who are killing them en mass. It is us who demolish their towns and kill their kids.

Thus, rather than raising the pathetic question, ‘why do they hate us?’ we’d better evade our self-righteous mode, and ask ourselves, ‘why do we hate them so much?’ or even, ‘why do we hate so much?’ in general.

Read the rest.

Bush Commutes Libby's Jail Sentence

It's appropriate.

The president who led the nation into a disastrous war in Iraq by peddling false statements and misrepresentations has come to the rescue of a White House aide convicted of lying by commuting his sentence.

...

Libby had become a symbol of the Bush White House's problem with the truth. After all, his lies had been designed to block FBI agents and federal prosecutors from learning the full truth of a White House effort to discredit a critic who had accused the Bush administration of twisting the prewar intelligence. And now the final act in the long-running CIA leak scandal--Bush's commutation--stands as another symbol of this grand theme: lying doesn't really bother this crowd.

Stay pissed off here.

White House won't rule out Libby pardon

The White House on Tuesday declined to rule out the possibility of an eventual pardon for former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. But spokesman Tony Snow said, for now, President Bush is satisfied with his decision to commute Libby's 2 1/2-year prison sentence.

"He thought any jail time was excessive. He did not see fit to have Scooter Libby taken to jail," Snow said.

Now isn't this the behavior of a dictator?

Doesn't a dictator decide the appropriate punishment for a crime?

Isn't that what Bush just did?

There is no judicial system. Just whatever Cheney...oops, I mean Bush, decides is appropriate.

Stay pissed off here.

Infertility breakthrough with first birth from lab-matured egg

The first baby to be created from an egg matured in a laboratory, frozen, thawed and then fertilised, has been born in Canada, researchers told a medical conference on Monday.

Learn more.

Republic to Empire

When President Teddy Roosevelt attended the funeral of a member of British royalty, he declined the offer of a gilded carriage for the funeral procession. Roosevelt told his British hosts that it would be inappropriate for the head of a republic. He would therefore walk.

...

If you are young and don't like to read (I hope this hasn't become a redundancy), then you are probably unaware of the transition from a republic to an empire. One of the reasons I'm so contemptuous of modern politicians is that I don't compare them with each other; I compare them with the great men of the past. The last elected president who had genuinely great accomplishments on his résumé was Dwight Eisenhower.

...

There is no such thing as a flawless politician. We should never expect perfection in anything involving human beings. But there very much is such a thing as character, and that's where we've gotten careless in our choice of leaders.

The foundations of character are honesty, courage and fidelity. An adulterer who is unfaithful to his wife is hardly likely to be faithful to his oath of office. John F. Kennedy was an adulterer and a playboy, but he was the first president to be marketed like a bar of soap or a tube of toothpaste. It becomes more and more difficult these days to distinguish between accomplishment and image.

Read the rest.

Blumner: Bush and the merger of church and state

When President Bush finally leaves office in January 2009, he will leave behind many legacies. One will be a nation stripped of its moral bearings. Where once we did not torture and were a nation of laws, that is no longer true. Bush will also leave us in far-reduced international standing and with a disabled military. And he will leave an exhausted treasury with a national debt of many trillions of dollars more than he found it.

In addition to all that, Bush will leave us with a system of church-state entanglements on an epic scale. By pouring billions of dollars into religiously affiliated social service providers, Bush will have accomplished precisely what the nation's founders warned against: a process by which people of many faiths and none at all are forced through compulsory taxation to underwrite other people's religious activities.

Everything Bush touches turns to shit.

Read the rest.

The case against God

Those who are planning a visit to the new Creation Museum in Kentucky or whose faith needs to be kept under lock and key are not likely to read this book. But those with a serious interest in the psycho-sociology of religion as a flawed human institution will find much to ponder here. After all, we do live at a time when people who passionately believe God is great have no problem flying passenger planes into New York skyscrapers.

Or invading a sovereign country.

Read the rest.

Study: 30 percent of U.S. adults have abused alcohol

More than 30 percent of American adults have abused alcohol or suffered from alcoholism at some point in their lives, and few have received treatment, according to a new government study.

Alcoholics who got treatment first received it, on average, at about age 30 -- eight years after they developed dependence on drinking, researchers reported.

Drink more here.

Hollywood hates pirates, but can it use them?

If Moore's film has been harmed by file sharing, the damage is hard to find.

"File sharing has been going on for years now and yet the movie industry continues to see record profits and revenues," said Fred von Lohmann, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for Internet users. "Clearly file sharing is not killing the movie industry, far from it."


Read more.

Libby: Force a Dictator to Act Like One

I mean Paris Hilton gets 45 days in jail for a traffic violation and people in Virginia can now get $3,000 fines for a speeding ticket, But Lewis Libbyy who helped lie this country uinto war and slipped information about Intelligence opratives to Zionist yellow journalist resulting in the dismantling of America's ability to track nuclear weapons proliferation (allowing Korea to get the bomb) does not get one day in jail not even one hour. Mordechai Vanunu is going back to jail (he was the whistle blower who took pictures of Israel's illegal nuclear arsenal) and yet Libby who helped dismantle the US's ability to track nuclear weapons, gets off scott free. So if you blow the whistle on Israeli nuclear criminals you go to jail. If you lie about someone else's WMDs that they didn't even have you get a commuted sentnce from the president. Tell the truth about Israel go to jail. Lie about Arabs and start a war and you get saved by the president. Speaking of presidents, Israel's president Katz can litterally get away with Rape and law suits from 8 different women and Libby can go free. What kind of despot nation do we live in when traffic tickets can cost you more than multiple rapes and starting wars.

Stay pissed off here.

The Day the Rule of Law Died

Let’s get something straight right away. Valerie Plame is the victim. A woman who dedicated her entire life to protecting this country from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction deserved better than this. A woman who served a NOC (non-official cover), meaning she would be killed and our government would have disowned her if she was caught, deserved better than this. Scooter Libby is a traitor to this country. He essentially committed treason against this country by deliberately lying to a special prosecutor investigating the outing of a covert CIA operative. Scooter Libby is not the victim. It is disgusting for President Bush to continue to portray him as one; today commuting his jail sentence; defecating on the rule of law as we know it.

Read more.

July 2, 2007

New Drug Deletes Bad Memories

Isn't this lovely...

Researchers at Harvard and McGill University (in Montreal) are working on an amnesia drug that blocks or deletes bad memories.

Think of the possibilities:

1) The things you soldiers do/see in war will become, well, forgotten.

2) Did I have sex last night? What was his name again? Hmmm. I must've stayed home and just watched TV. I wonder why I can't remember.

3) I never said I wouldn't raise taxes. (Oh wait, politicians must already have the amnesia drug.)

Forget what you want here.

Spending is hotter than the 4th of July

Gas prices make fill-ups miserable. Personal debt is climbing. The mighty euro is sapping the dollar's purchasing power. And yet many Americans are spending as if happy days were here again.

Spend more here.

Poor sense of smell may be Alzheimer's

Difficulty identifying common smells such as lemon, banana and cinnamon may be the first sign of Alzheimer's disease, according to a study that could lead to scratch-and-sniff tests to determine a person's risk for the progressive brain disorder.

Learn more.

Lieberman: Iran has declared war on the US

"Although no one desires a conflict with Iran, the fact is that the Iranian government by its actions has declared war on us," Lieberman wrote, while urging the United States to keep "open the possibility of using military force against the terrorist infrastructure inside Iran."

Joe.

Shut up.

Read the rest.

Global Unease: Anti-Americanism on the Rise

A worldwide survey finds global public opinion expressing increasing negative views of the United States and a lack of confidence in President Bush. Global support for the "war on terror" is lower than ever.

That's because you can't fight terrorism with, well, more terrorism and expect to win. Oh wait, they're not expecting to win, hell they're not even trying to win. Instead it's all about making shitloads of money for themselves and their friends.

Whew. I almost forgot.

I kept reading...

But the other dominant nations of the world, Russia, China and the European countries fared no better, and no nation or the United Nations has filled the void in world leadership. In China's case, its rising economic and military power is viewed with deepening suspicion by some nations.

Dominant nations?

Maybe one of the non-dominant (would that be "lesser"?) nations could lead the world out of the hell that the dominant nations have created.

One can hope.

Read the rest.

Russia shuts down Allofmp3.com

The music download website whose activities threatened to scupper Russia's entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has been shut down.

The site, Allofmp3.com, was quietly closed as the Kremlin sought to end criticism from the United States that Russia was failing to clamp down on music and video piracy.

However, an alternative site run by the same Moscow company has already emerged. MediaServices says that mp3Sparks.com is legal under Russian law, using many of the same arguments advanced in support of allofmp3.com.

Read more.

'Scepticism' over climate claims

In some good news...

The public believes the effects of global warming on the climate are not as bad as politicians and scientists claim, a poll has suggested.

The Ipsos Mori poll of 2,032 adults - interviewed between 14 and 20 June - found 56% believed scientists were still questioning climate change.

There was a feeling the problem was exaggerated to make money, it found.

Now, we humans would never overhype anything just to make money now would we? Nah. Never.

Read the rest.

Bush Commutes Libby Prison Sentence

President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak investigation Monday, delivering a political thunderbolt in the highly charged criminal case. Bush said the sentence was just too harsh.

And we let them get away with this shit.

The sentence was too harsh? Too harsh? WTF? Why doesn't he look at some other people that have been given harsh sentences? Oh wait, they're not his friends nor accomplices. Sheesh, stupid me.

Read the freakin' rest.

Ignorant on Purpose

I mean, I’m glad that I’ve started reading the news and realizing what’s going on, because I HATE not knowing what’s going on…but I can definitely see why I was happier being ignorant. And I can understand how some people would want to just keep their heads in the sand. It’s overwhelming, the amount of utter ridiculousness that’s going on in the world (and just in our little area of the world) these days.

Keep everything in perspective, but always pay attention.

Read the rest.

Stress 'makes us fat'

AUSTRALIAN scientists have discovered that chronic stress can make us fat by triggering the body's fat cells to grow and multiply.

The link between stress and obesity has been known for more than a decade but these findings are the first to explain how exactly the connection works.

Read more.

Europeans see US as threat to peace

In the US itself, North Korea and Iran are seen as the biggest risks. However, the youngest US respondents share the Europeans’ view that theirs is the biggest threat, with 35 per cent of American 16- to 24-year-olds identifying it as the chief danger to stability.

Now isn't that interesting?

Read the rest.

The Plan to Disappear Canada

If the machinations going on in this country regarding so-called "deep integration" were instead a communist conspiracy to take over the country (you will, of course, have to try hard to imagine this) the news media would be blaring the story.

Pundits would pontificate, editorialists would erupt, security forces would be unleashed.

Instead, a virtual conspiracy to make the country disappear through assimilation into the U.S. gets barely a mention.

Learn more.

Mechanical Fingers Give Strength, Speed to Amputees

If the X-Finger looks like a prop from The Terminator, relax. It isn't out to kill you, and it isn't robotic. In fact, it's a mechanical prosthetic finger so effective it provides articulation as fast and flexible as the real thing.

Learn more.

Lieberman calls for wider use of surveillance cameras

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said Sunday he wants to “more widely” use surveillance cameras across the country.

“The Brits have got something smart going in England, and it was part of why I believe they were able to so quickly apprehend suspects in the terrorist acts over the weekend, and that is they have cameras all over London and other of their major cities,” Lieberman said.


“I think it’s just common sense to do that here much more widely,” he added. “And of course, we can do it without compromising anybody’s real privacy.”

Be continuously watched here.

Glimpse of Time Before Big Bang Possible

It may be possible to glimpse before the supposed beginning of time into the universe prior to the Big Bang, researchers now say.

Unfortunately, any such picture will always be fuzzy at best due to a kind of "cosmic forgetfulness."

Learn more.

July 1, 2007

When the Vice President Does It, That Means It’s Not Illegal

Once the laughter subsides and you look deeper into the narrative leading up to the punch line, you can unearth a buried White House plot that is more damning than the official scandal. This plot once again snakes back to the sinister origins of the Iraq war, to the Valerie Wilson leak case and to the press failures that enabled the administration to abuse truth and the law for too long.

Learn more.

How Cheney abused his power in war on terror

Vice-President Dick Cheney was personally responsible for American policies that subjected terrorist suspects to cruelty and denied them the right to a fair trial, according to revelations from senior US government officials.

...

The claims that Mr Cheney manoeuvred to circumvent both American and international law came as the vice-president last week faced three new congressional demands that he release information on his activities.

Cheney is the world's most dangerous man. It is doubtful he will ever pay for his actions.

Read the rest.

Meet Eclyse - the amazing zebra crossing

But in reality there is no artificial colouring on display here. This amazing but natural coat belongs to Eclyse the zorse.

Her father is a zebra, while her mother is a horse. And she's walking proof of how a child inherits genes from both parents.

Yes, there is a picture. Check it out here.

It's the people vs. the government, new poll suggests

But Americans are not convinced that changing parties will make much difference. The new dynamic in American politics right now isn't Democrat versus Republican.

That's because it's different shit but the same stench.

"It is a sad commentary in America today that many Americans have lost faith in their government," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona, said. He added, "Americans don't believe that their government is representing them, is acting on their behalf. The polls show it."

And are you surprised by the anger?

Read the rest.

Bush Cites Israel as Model for Success in Iraq

President Bush held up Israel as a model for defining success in Iraq, saying yesterday that the goal of America's mission in Iraq is not eliminating attacks but enabling a democracy that can function despite continuing violence.

Huh?

Read the rest.

In Steps Big and Small, Supreme Court Moved Right

It was the Supreme Court that conservatives had long yearned for and that liberals feared.

Read more.

Egypt bans all female circumcision

Egypt on Thursday finally banned all female circumcision, the widely practised removal of the clitoris that just days ago cost the life of a 12-year-old girl.

...

A survey in 2000 said the practice was carried out on 97% of the country's women.

Think about that for a moment.

Now read the rest.

Doctors freeze eggs of girls, 5

Doctors have managed to extract eggs from five-year-old girls and freeze them for use when they are old enough to have children.

The scientific advance, which had been thought impossible, will enable girls suffering childhood cancers such as leukaemia to become parents in later life. Thousands are left infertile each year after undergoing chemotherapy.

It also opens the possibility of storing girls’ eggs to protect them against any form of infertility in later life.

Read more.

Chores top children in marriage

The percentage of Americans who consider children "very important" to a successful marriage has dropped sharply since 1990, and more now cite the sharing of household chores as pivotal, according to a sweeping new survey.

Read more.

Church Blasts Premarital Sex Proposal

"The teaching of the Catholic Church about fornication is clear and unambiguous; it is always objectively a serious sin," Curtiss wrote.

Looks like somebody needs to get laid.

Read the rest.

Science Not to Blame for Non-Religious Scientists

The findings challenge notions that science is responsible for a lack of faith among researchers, indicating that household upbringing carries the biggest weight in determining religiousness.

...

So why are scientists less religious? The data indicate that being raised in a religious home is the best predictor of how religious someone will be—scientist or member of the general population.

Learn more.

Floods are judgment on society, say bishops

One diocesan bishop has even claimed that laws that have undermined marriage, including the introduction of pro-gay legislation, have provoked God to act by sending the storms that have left thousands of people homeless.

JFC these people!

Read the rest.

Oswald 'had no time to fire all Kennedy bullets'

In fresh tests of the Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action weapon, supervised by the Italian army, it was found to be impossible for even an accomplished marksman to fire the shots quickly enough.

Read more.

Never-before-seen Hitler footage to air on US television

The reel was analyzed by Wright with the help of Washington DC`s Holocaust Memorial Museum. Although she says that there are always doubts over a historical artifact’s authenticity, the footage "certainly does seem as if this is true."

Well, that makes me feel better.

Read the rest.