Just a quickie before I go to work

How sad is this? The President of Venezuela, a guy who America personally insulted, cares more about America's poor than the Bush administration. Hugo Chávez and Representative Delahunt (D-MA) are working on a deal that would allow a Venezuelan oil company to provide cheap heating oil to Boston's poor. (story courtesy alternate universe)
Recall that a month ago, Congress voted against providing heating oil for the poor this winter.

The Difference between Iraq and Afghanistan

According to Dick Cheney, debate on the Iraq war is healthy--but it's wrong to criticize the Bush administration for basing the invasion of Iraq on one rogue agent named (I'm not being sarcastic here) "Curveball".
Even if you want to be an optimist, that makes the Bush Administration, at the very least, incompetent.

If you're ever in a philosophy class and need to remember what "circular reasoning" is, here is a good example:

Mr. Cheney reiterated the administration's stance that Iraq is "the central front in the war on terror." He scoffed at assertions by administration critics that the Iraq campaign had made America less safe by stirring up hatred against the United States and its allies.

"They overlook a fundamental fact," Mr. Cheney said. "We were not in Iraq on Sept. 11, 2001, and the terrorists hit us anyway."

I just keep turning it around and around in my head, trying to understand the logic. Have you ever heard something so goddamn crazy, and you know it's goddamn crazy but it's so crazy that you can't even begin to refute it? It only makes sense if you replace the word "Iraq" with "Afghanistan."

Cheney also claimed that having a timetable would show the terrorists that we're weak. I don't know how the hell having a goddamn clue about what you're doing makes you weak. All I know is that the Iraqis are game.

Fucked Up Beyond All Repair

Remember that time when I compared the Iraq War to the Vietnam war? Well, the Republicans were right. Making that kind of comparison is not only traitorous, it's innacurate. People put up with the Viet Nam War for several years--it didn't hit 50% disapproval until several years and tens of thousands of casualties. It's only taken two years for support for the Iraq war to drop to 35%.

Look at that shit. If it weren't in convenient graph form (courtesy CSMonitor), I wouldn't believe it. Americans hate the Iraq War more than they hated the Viet Nam war.

Dare I say it? Are the American people getting smarter?

Maybe just more cynical? More impervious to bullshit. I don't know.

Bush and Cheney can 'vetch all they want, but they can't blame this on the Democrats' massive negative publicity campaign, 'cause the Democrats are, for the most part, a bunch of pussies. We've got like, two guys speaking out against the war. There's some organized opposition--Cindy Sheenan and Michael Moore and all of them, but I have been led to believe that the '60s and '70s anti-war movement was much stronger than today's.

Maybe people are against the Iraq War because it is fubar, it has always been fubar, and it is becoming more fubar'd by the second.
The Viet Nam war was a failure in almost every respect, but at least communism didn't *increase* because of it. We've all read that report. Worldwide terrorism has gone up since the Iraq war started. Our borders are less safe than ever (proof: illegal immigration is up).

These boots were made for walking

A shoe designer is giving away swank tennis shoes made for border crossing. These shoes come with a built-in compass, a hidden pocket, a flashlight, etc.

These web polls are about as scientific as intelligent design, but 86% of the people who read that article thought that the designer was encouraging illegal immigration.

You know why I posted this article? Because it's the first time I've ever seen the American media acknowledge that American companies are recruiting people in Mexico. As in, going to Mexico and telling people that, if they come to America, they'll have a job.
Some people do come over here with no job waiting for them. Mexico has its problems, and some people really are so desperate. However, American companies are to blame for a lot of the immigration. They are the ones who are encouraging it. If the Administration really wants to lower illegal immigration, it will start cracking down on these companies.

As for the shoe designer, I doubt she's encouraging--it sounds to me like she's giving them to people who are already on their way over.

update: Yes, I've heard about the 125 illegal workers deported from a Wal*Mart construction site. We're really making great strides, aren't we. Notice that there's nothing in the article about anything happening to the employers.

War on Drugs

If the War on Drugs started in what, the Clinton Administration, and our drug policy is just now making an impact, how long is this War on Terror going to take?



Sorry about the tiny, tiny print. Just go to mnftiu if you don't want to ruin your eyes.

edt: just corrected a joke-ruining mistake. Carry on.

Environmentalism: it's not just for liberals

Follow me here--shouldn't people who believe that God made the earth care about it *more* than people who don't? Shouldn't fundies be huge environmentalists? Yet historically, this hasn't been the case. Fundies tend to vote Republican, and Republicans, love them or hate them, don't care about the environment as much as Democrats.
Fortunately, a coalition of environmentalists, conservatives, and fundies have been pressuring Congress to curtail foreign oil dependence and promote alternative energy sources. Umm..awesome. I've always thought that, even if you don't give a rat's ass about the environment, it just isn't smart to depend on Saudi Arabia.

Voluntary Accountability

Ever notice that sometimes, the headline will say something completely different from the article?
The headline: Senate Demands Accountability on Iraq War.
The subhead: The Republican-controlled Senate easily defeated a Democratic effort Tuesday to pressure President Bush to outline a timetable for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. It then overwhelmingly endorsed a weaker statement calling on the administration to explain its Iraq policy.

Rejecting mandatory policy in favor of voluntary..that sounds familiar. Doesn't it sound like every single environmental control this Administration has pushed? And we all know how well those have worked.

Now's not the time to pussyfoot. We need answers. Look at what's happening over in Iraq. We have people being detained without being charged. Of the 35,000 Iraqis we've arrested, only 1,300 have been charged, with only 650 found guilty. Former detainees claim that they were tortured (courtesy the Angry Arab.), and we all know about what happened at Abu Ghraib.
Allegations have been flying that the army has been using white phosphorous as a weapon, sometimes on Iraqi civillians.

the widening gap between the rich and the poor

It's not just your imagination: the Angry Arab points out that according to the Economist, the gap between the rich and poor is widening. The top 5% have 46% of the money--up 6% from 1980. Also, things are more unequal in the States than they are in Europe.

the punchline: Osama Bin Laden

Anyway, we've all heard that Pat Robertson has gone from threatening the president of Venezuela to threatening entire cities? And that not to be outdone, Bill O'Reilley recently issued a fatwah threat against San Francisco.
You know, it's been a while, but there's this other guy who used to get on TV and threaten the United States. It's been so long that I just can't think of his name. You know, he had a beard, and sandals, and he was always calling death to America? I hate it when this happens. It'll come to me.

Osama Bin Laden will die of natural causes

You know that the war in Iraq is going badly when the top terrorists start dying of natural causes. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, thought to be important to the insurgency, has reportedly died of cancer while in hiding.

More and more people are realizing that the Iraq situation is utterly screwed, probably irreversably. 57%, last time I checked. No wonder Bush is pissy. He's so used to being surrounded by yes-men, he can't handle it when Americans start to question his policies.

It's every American's duty to stay informed. And if in the process of staying informed, we see a whole lot of bullshit..we're going to call it. We should call it.

Bastard of the day

Bill Frist, on the record, said that he cares more that news of the illegal prisons got out than that the United States has, you know, illegal prisons, where god knows what goes on.

Not that the leak isn't important, but damn, man! Who do you think you are, the President? You can't get away with saying stupid shit like that on the record and expect everybody to go "oh that's okay, he didn't mean it like that."

I don't think that's accurate

I know that I rag on the Bush Administration for being incompetent. But you know, I'm actually kind of glad that they're incompetent. Because otherwise, they might be able to fool me for more than five goddamn seconds.

As Blogenfreude points out, there is a substantial difference between what Scott McClellan says in the video (quicktime) of the press conference, and what the White House has him saying in the transcript of that same press conference.

Scott McClellan says--and if I'm lyin' I'm dyin'--"that's accurate." He says it quickly, but it is not ambiguous at all. It's right there, absolutely clear.
The White House transcripts quote him as saying "I don't think that's accurate."

This can't be happening.

Won't somebody please think of the children?

You know how it is. Two steps forward and one step back. The Democrats may have won Virginia and New Jersey, but Kansas voted to rewrite the definition of science so that it could teach "intelligent design" in schools.

I could just say "Kansas is stupid," hit Publish and go on to something else, but it's that kind of arrogance that lost us the 2004 election. Besides, Kansas isn't stupid. It's lazy.

An entire generation of Kansasians (is that right?) is going to grow up completely ignorant about one of the most important concepts in science. That's definitely a problem. But a lot of other states have crap science education--I know mine did--so what makes Kansas's actions so cringe-worthy? Maybe it's because there's something very wrong about teaching kids that if you don't know the answer, give up.

The Fightin' Oil Slicks

I don't normally do business news, but I just couldn't resist: the makers of the worst computer platform might team up with the makers of the worst internet service. That's right, Microsoft may buy a stake in AOL. That would be like if Wal-Mart decided to start selling Yugos. If Harriet Miers and Mike Brown teamed up with George W. Bush to manage an oil company and/or baseball team.

I'm not going to brag about "calling it" this time, because everybody knew this was going to happen: the FBI is using the Patriot Act to abuse the rights of Americans.

People who are bad at their jobs

It's come out that Mike "Brownie" Brown was not only not qualified to head FEMA, he didn't even care about disaster relief. We all suspected this, but his own emails confirm it.
Brown could possibly be forgiven for being in over his head. Possibly maybe. If we were feeling really, really Christian. But not even trying? He let emails about medical supplies go unanswered for days while he emailed his secretary asking about what to wear on television (ironically, he wanted to convey a "hard-working" image). He spent more time picking out an outfit that made him look hard-working than actually helping people.
This is so goddamn unbelievable. I hate to pull a Bill Frist here, but if Mike Brown isn't a sociopath then I will eat my hat. Holy shit.

Speaking of being absolutely unsuited for your job, the mayor of Las Vegas is a fascist who believes that graffiti artists should have their thumbs chopped off. "On national television," he adds. Who's going to want to watch that? Besides Mike Brown, I mean.

Illegal immigration: Solutions

The BBC, the best source for news about America, reports that the US vows to stop illegal immigration. *All* illegal immigration. Wow, this is almost like the time when Bush claimed we'd eradicate terrorism from around the world.

I know that we all hate Chertoff, but Chertoff's got one good point here: the deterrence factor. Once it becomes harder to get here, less people will attempt it. The question is, how are we going to do it?
President Bush has already leapt into action by showing Hispanics that, despite what he may have said in the 2000 campaign, he does not actually give a shit about them. But more needs to be done.
Some other ideas:
* Work with Mexico to come up with a solution. Unfortunately, America is either unwilling or unable to do this.
* House Republican Duncan Hunter suggests that we fence the border, all 2,000 miles of it, to the tune of eight billion dollars.
* Convince all of the illegal aliens to go to Canada. Which is already happening. Canada is a lot nicer to their illegal aliens than we are--and they have free universal health care.
* Start enforcing the laws about hiring illegal immigrants. Don't let the propoganda fool you. Illegal immigrants are coming over to work, not live on welfare. A company can be fined up to $10,000 per illegal immigrant. If the government went after a really big company--say, Wal*Mart--and actually made them pay a substantial amount of money, that would act as a pretty good deterrent against hiring illegal immigrants. Not only would this not cost eight billion dollars, it might even make some money.

Why corporations are better than regular people, part II

One of the best things about web logging is that you learn so much. I know I've learned a lot. Did you know that corporations have the same rights as people? Not all the same rights--not yet, at least, but every day the powers that be are working to right this travesty.

I just couldn't believe it when I heard it. Because from what I've seen, corporations have more rights than us.

Here's an example: would the government give me fifteen days advance warning so that I'd have time to hide all the illegal child labor working in my garden? No? Then why do they extend Wal*Mart that courtesy? I can get fined $200 for throwing a Starbucks cup out my car window, but if I were a corporation I could dump toxic waste on a baby seal and get a tax cut for my trouble.

edit: A more reasonable example. I have an illegal alien sleeping on my couch. He's just staying here, he doesn't work for us or anything. You know that I could go to jail for up to five years for that? Or pay a big-assed fine. Apparently it's a felony to harbor illegal aliens. Who knew?
Considering that Wal*Mart's workforce is estimated at 25% illegal, the execs should be in jail until the Iraq war is over.