Ding Dong!

Wicked witch is dead! -

Some Links, With Politics (And Questions On Plurals)

I don't do bunches of links very often but here are some:

You Are Being Lied To About Pirates by Johann Hari
I'm one of those guys who is likely to take the side of the little guy over the government or the corporation, to the point where I may not condone violence but I certainly understand it. In general, if the little guy is getting screwed by the government and the corporation together, he usually has only one way of getting what he wants. I don't like terrorism, but I understand it. It's war on a shoestring budget. When you're in a corner, you do what you gotta do. Throw me some hate mail if you like. The only difference between what we've done in Iraq and what the dildos (should that be dildoes?) did on 9/11 is a matter of scale.

Underland Press
I haven't really looked into this site, but the NPR story today seemed mildly interesting.

Flash Scribe
Another joint that takes Flash Fiction. They're interested in doing series (how do I pluralize something that's already plural? serieses?) in flashes. Now that's interesting. I've got an idea for a flash fiction series. I'd considered doing it here on the blog, just haven't gotten to it yet. It would be based on one of the flash pieces I've already run here. The only challenge is, the concept is insane and the stories would be as well, so could I keep up my interest in it, and could I keep the readers interest? I'll have to write a few and figure out if I want to do more.

Blonde Roots
Heard about this on NPR today as well. It's an alternative history novel about Africans enslaving Europeans in the New World. Again, the little guy thing, this appeals to me. The book's not out for a couple of weeks. I've often fantasized about the Europeans coming to a New World in which the natives are technologically superior and beat their white asses down and maybe go to find out where they came from. I don't think I'd be interested in writing it. I just like to think about it. We've loved making Nazis the bad guys in American pop culture for seventy years now, but we act as if we didn't perpetrate our own Holocaust right here. Who knew my links would taste so politically skewed?

We're not All Equal Yet

Obama's win was historic and uplifting and all that good stuff. When you look at the black experience in America today compared to fifty years ago, the progress is astounding. It's a great thing for America.

However . . .

What's not such a great thing is the ass-kicking that human rights in America took last night. Gay and lesbian marriage was banned in California, Arizona and Florida. In Arkansas it's no longer legal for same sex couples to adopt or take in foster children. That asterisk next to the word "free" in "the land of the free"? It's still there.

We grew up a little last night but we still have a lot of growing up to do. Please write to your people in Congress.

Nice

Wassup 2008

Saw this on HuffPo and Boing Boing. It's fucking awesome! First the original:





And now eight years later:






The best part isn't on the screen: Eight years ago all these guys were working to put money into Cindy McCain's bank accounts.

Why Obama is like Osama

Because the Republicans can't catch either one of them.

Veepin'

Biden won. His answers were much more concrete and very knowledgeable. He didn't lose control of himself, which was the big fear among his people. No big blunders.

Palin made huge headway in just staunching the bleeding of her image and therefore staunching the blood loss of the Republican ticket, as much as she's responsible for anyway. She didn't come off like the utter moron we've been watching for the last week and a half. That in itself was a great win for her. However asking her to do all of that and win the debate was just far too much for almost anyone to do.

Like I said . . .

The Last Great Looting

I'm slow. I'll be the first to admit it. Only minutes ago did I realize that there's no real reason that this bailout has to happen. Only minutes ago did I realize that the entire thing, from at least last Wednesday, has been designed and sold to us by the Bushies. I'm sure many of you will just think that I'm being paranoid. I can't prove otherwise. Just days ago when I learned of section 8 of the White House's plan, wherein the Secretary of the Treasury (Paulson), is given unfettered control over the distribution of the 700 billion dollars, I thought the White House was merely taking advantage of the situation.

Now I recall that Ben Bernanke has been in lockstep with Paulson while speaking to Congress over the last two days and this entire concept of the big bailout has come from no one else but them. The Bushies sold us the Iraq war through fear and they are selling this bailout the same way. They say that we need to act on this by Friday, after that it will be too late. We're taking their word that can see the economic future past Friday. We're taking the word of the people who got us into this situation and got us into our world situation over the last eight years. Suddenly we accept that they know what they're talking about. The faster we have to act on this, the less time we'll have to think on it and the less time the Stock Market will have to naturally right itself. This is actually the last great looting of America by the Bush administration.

They say that if Wall Street goes down, the country will go with it. Have they mentioned what will happen when America has to pay the bill for the ungodly spending spree the "conservatives" have taken us on in the past eight years? Wouldn't we be better served if that $700 billion was paid directly on the mortgages of citizens who are struggling to keep their homes? Might that not stabilize housing prices and end the current crisis? What's the difference in damage to the country when it's destroyed financially from the bottom up rather than the top down? The difference is, the top down fix helps big business and government has always been in bed with big business.

I submit to you that the bailout is completely unnecessary. Unfortunately, even if anyone agreed with me, it wouldn't matter. The majority of people are not questioning its necessity, they are only questioning how it should be done. The White House has gotten one over on us once more. Maybe we deserve it. We are the rubes who have been taken in by the scams of the conman again and again and even when we know he's ripped us off in the past, we're reaching from our wallets one last time without hesitation.

Spread The Word

St. Paul cops, backed by the Feds, have been cracking skulls for days now outside the RNC, arresting protesters before they protest and reporters while they're reporting. This is getting no network coverage, but Salon.com's Glen Greenwald has been all over it. Please spread this link so this story gets the attention it deserves.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/01/protests/

Georgia On My Mind

I'm usually pissed at the media for talking a story to death, but today I'm pissed because they're not covering the Russian invasion of Georgia nearly enough. I want to know what's happening. Fuck John Edwards and fuck Obama and McCain for a couple of days and tell us about the important stuff!

Russia's invasion is horrible and disturbing and people are dying terrible deaths for power plays. Putin, ex-KGB man that he is, is a Soviet to his core and the events of the past few weeks hearken back to the U.S.S.R.'s incursions in Afghanistan, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia to name three. Worse yet, they hearken back to our own invasion of Iraq.

There is no fundamental difference between what's happening in Georgia today and what happened in Iraq in 2003. A superpower creates a rationalization to present to the world and unilaterally destroys another sovereign nation. Who's going to join the defender against a world power? Georgia's President begs for help. He's fucked. No one is going to join in a war against Russia. No one ran to Iraq's defense. We'll see this again when China sweeps up Taiwan, U.S. treaty or not. We're all playing RISK and the little people are paying with everything they have.

We have lost the moral high ground as well. Maybe we can convince G8 to become the G7 once more. Maybe we can encourage sanctions. But our moral influence has evaporated. Any discretion that we point out on the Russians' part can be reflected back on us. Should the G8 become the G6? Maybe the Russians will petition for it if they get tossed out. What kind of logical, legal defense could we present to ensure a different treatment for ourselves?

Bush can protest Russia's actions. He can protest China's human rights violations. He should do both of these things, whether or not he's guilty of them himself, so I back his complaints. But what kind of weight do they carry? Who takes them seriously and what power do our words have when we've bankrupted those words through our own actions time and time again?

Gaaa!

How moronic can this administration get? How dumb do they think we are?

Chertoff downplays terrorist nuclear threat
From the story:
LONDON - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is downplaying the idea of a nuclear attack by terrorists after recent postings on al-Qaida-affiliated Web sites exhorted militants to pursue weapons of mass destruction for use against the U.S.

So if Iran and Iraq swear up and down that they're not developing WMDs and not threatening us, then we'd better attack them. But if someone actively encourages others to attack us using WMDs, then that's nothing to worry about.

Do you see the politics yet?

Let's stop allowing these government fucks to manipulate us in the incredibly stupid ways that they do. I'm not a flag waver, but it's embarrassing as a country to have lived in fear for the last seven years. The Israelis deal with terrorist attacks all the time. The English dealt with them for decades. We get one good bloody nose and we throw America away for the agenda of an administration that has done more damage to this country than any terrorist could have.

We're less safe then we were on 9/11. Nobody checks shipping containers coming into the country. Our actions have greatly increased the amount of terrorists in the world. Our government not only gave the bin Laden family a ride home on one of the only jets allowed to fly after the towers went down, but they've fixed it so that the Saudis who bankroll the terrorists are getting the money from us. The list goes on and on. And yet we haven't been attacked again.

We're going to look back on the dawning of the millennium in shame for what we allowed to happen. Now is the time to put fear behind us and to act like we're not the most mentally deficient country on the block. Let's do the right things to move forward through education, peacemaking and compassion for our fellow human beings. Let's take back our freedom and do everything we can to prevent our people from acting so humiliatingly stupid again.

How The Republicans Are Keeping Us Safe

Here are two consecutive articles posted on BoingBoing today that illustrate how our leaders are protecting us from terrorists. Make what you will of them:

Van driven onto Sea-Tac runway. Nobody notices, cares. http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/21/van-driven-onto-seat.html

FBI looking for vegan potluck terrorists http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/21/fbi-looking-for-vega.html