Drinking The Kool-Aid
Mustang Bobby has a nice piece on the thirtieth anniversary of Jonestown, the first of many major cult suicide/murder pacts in recent history.
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Speaking of… (drinking Kool-Aid),
What do you think of this?
Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez and a few others Indicted in TX
I have no details, but I can hope! 😉 It was worth reading just for the comments! LOL
Oh… And (sorry, but…) Palin is all but a bad smell. 😉 LOL
The big crook and her bestest friend, Ted Stevens is history. 😀
Hulk Smushed! Mark Begich declared winner in Alaska
Wahooo! LOL
OK. I found more on the indictment. Seems it’s true. 🙂 From local (TX) News:
Willacy County Grand Jury Indicts Vice President
Dick Cheney indicted in Texas
Associated Press:
Cheney, Gonzales indicted in South Texas county
Of course… it doesn’t mean much now. Too bad it didn’t happen 4 years ago! *SHRUG*
Yeah… Will be interesting. 🙂
Update:
Dick Cheney indicted for organized crime by Texas grand jury
BTW, Been reading this very interesting list of the top 25 stories censored by the US media. Seems the US is now the #2 ranked Nation to effectively be responsible for genocide (#1 being Cambodia under Pol Pot, which I personally hold the USA responsible for anyway):
Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009
Right. Well, bedtime for me! TTYL 😉
The indictment is smoke and mirrors by a local district attorney who is generally regarded as an obnoxious jerk, which is why he lost re-election. I only hope his theatrical performance doesn’t screw up the ability to actually prosecute those directly involved in the real crimes committed in Texas’s privatized prisons. Electing judges, prosecutors, and sheriffs is a really bad idea.
Sarah Palin is not a friend of Ted Stevens. They have been on the outs since she won the Republican primary against Ted’s good buddy Frank Murkowski in the run for Alaskan governor. Ted has owned the Alaskan Republican Party for a couple of decades, and he doesn’t like people who oppose his plans. The people who really hate Palin in Alaska are Republicans, which has cost them “Uncle Ted’s” Senate seat. The Republican in-fighting gave the Democrats an opportunity and they took it. Keep in mind that the votes that gave the Democrat the win in Alaska were cast before Stevens was convicted.
I have read all of the stories that were supposed to be censored. They were featured because they didn’t agree with the visions of the corporations that own the bulk of American media, but all of them were reported and available to anyone who is actually interested in the world. If people cared about the world around them the corporations would give them what they ask for. Most of what they have been asking for is celebrity gossip.
No argument from me there… 😉 Even on Stevens. LOL One rumor I heard about the indictment was that it was an effort to stop Cheney and Gonzo leaving for Dubai. *shrug*
I’ve been *hearing* around here and there (on blogs I’ve been skimming mostly) about people wondering why the Bush admin is being so *quiet* and even seem to be doing the right thing regarding the transition to the Obama Presidency. Of course, I was very suspicious because the Bush Admin will do everything possible to make sure they are as protected as possible and to make Obama appear to be a lame duck. That was a given for me. SO I found some clues, like this in AfterDowningStreet
Soviet-style Purge in Final Days of Bush Administration: the Silent Coup d’etat
And if anyone thinks the Bush Cartels BFF Murdock is laying quiet…
WSJ hires right-winger as deputy editor-in-chief
And of course, this was a given:
Covering new presidents: the media’s double standard
It all goes to show of course that the MSM in the USA has most certainly had a distinct Republican bias for decades. No surprise there. It’s going to be very interesting to me who Obama picks for Press Secretary and White house mouthpiece. It wouldn’t be hard to do better than Perino! Donald Duck would be an improvement! LOL
There are a lot of other moves happening quietly in the background… but you get the idea. I hope Obama’s people are watching all this closely and are working on a strategy to deal with it. Otherwise, Hell will seem a picnic for Obama compared to the next 4 years in the White house.
And one of the stories that have all but been forgotten:
Plame, Wilson to take CIA leak lawsuit to Supreme Court
Just another day… 🙂
Today is a great day for hilarious news stories! LOL Ya know… I was worried that I’d miss the past 8 years because of the endless amusement it provided. But I don’t think I’ll have to worry. 😉 LOL I suspect I’ll continue to be amused for years to come! 😀 Here’s a good example…
Rep. Ackerman: Auto Execs’ Private Jet Travel Like Guy At ‘The Soup Kitchen In High Hat And Tuxedo’
So… That’s what they *said* and to prove they meant it:
I’m happy that at least some of the Dem’s seem to understand Irony! Makes a change from the GOP, who think irony is a kind of metal. LOL
So… are these guys just arrogant or plain stupid? Hmmm… I vote for both. The perfect American CEO. LOL They could have, at the very least, flown commercially and given the appearance of being fiscally responsible. Morons! LOL
And this one had me guffawing! LOL
Michelle Bachmann denies saying she wanted the media to investigate members of Congress who might be anti-American
PMSL… The wingnuts truly are the gifts that just keep on giving! And proves that even a complete moron can have the *American dream*. All you need is a lobotomy and a PhD in Consummate Ass Kissing. Oh, and join an *approved* wingnut Church. LOL
You have to give Ms Perino points for having the courage to face the press in those briefings. Everyone in the room knows she has absolutely nothing to work with and only disasters to report with the whole thing on video tape. You have to be a natural liar to be able to pull that off, and she just isn’t. It is painful to watch as a trained interrogator – [little fib coming… oh, no a major lie about to be uttered… she doesn’t believe a word she’s saying] Watching one of those briefings is a training tape for basic interrogation and spotting the physiological clues. Most of the media asking questions stink, but Helen Thomas is a graduate course in interrogation techniques.
The American media is owned by corporations. The people who run corporations all tend to be Republicans, so the bias is a feature not a bug. Obama received good coverage in the primary, because the media hate the Clintons. There wasn’t much they could do for McCain when he went into melt down on the campaign trail and his media people were really bad, like the rest of his campaign.
Now, of course, things will revert to the standard negative bias against a Democratic administration. If three years down the road a cure for cancer is discovered, the media will produce “proof” that the Shrubbery was actually responsible. Just like they will claim that the current economy was really the fault of the Democrats. That’s the way things have always been.
You will notice how much attention is being paid to Bill Clinton’s business dealings since Hillary Clinton was put in the spotlight as possible Secretary of State. Nothing at all has been said about the various interests of the Bush family, not even the huge profits being made by the President’s brother, Neil , from the No Child Left Behind program. To the media a possible Clinton scandal is worth 10 actual Bush scandals.
If anyone was really interested, the “burrowing” and purging could be fixed in a couple of weeks by a task force of lawyers familiar with Federal civil service law. They wait too long to do this. It should have been done a year in advance to stand. Most of what has been done is in clear violation of the civil service laws, but you can’t wait because if you delay, it is a bitch to undo.
At this point I would recommend that they start arranging to send to incoming managers to the 40-hour seminar that the Cornell School of Industrial Relations runs. They have an innocuous name for the course, but it really is about how you fire civil service employees. The process takes a little time, but, like much of civil service, once started the result is inevitable. A little documentation, a little event scheduling, and pretty soon the process is on auto-pilot and the targeted employee will resign rather than lose everything they have built up by being fired.
Your boy Rupert Murdock owns the WSJ these days, so everyone knew this was coming. I’m still waiting for the first “Page 3 Girl”.
Hah! He’s NOT *Our boy*! He’s allllll yours! LOL Even his son’s disowned him and came back to Aus to live and work. 😉 He pays taxes… errrm… well, he’s *supposed* to pay taxes, 😉 in the USA. Most of his major holdings are incorporated in the USA (discounting those Cayman Islands, Bahama’s etc holdings of course). America wanted him, you got him! And good riddance to bad smells. LOL
Ya know… it should tell the average American something when all the WORST Biz people in the World find a happy home in the USA. 😉 LOL
A Page 3 girl would be a definite improvement. Then all those rednecks will buy WSJ too then because then they will have some pictures to look at. 😀
PS: What you say about the media is true. And the indications are that many people are realizing it, mostly the current young generation, and using the ‘net for their news. Circulation has been dropping steadily for some years now. And TV is not much better. FOX has consistently ranked low in all ratings. I see that 60 Minutes on CBS scored very high on Neilson ratings with the Obama Interview. 🙂
Well… we can but hope that the trend will continue once all the current old fogies who still love them some GOP are dead and buried. Preferable on a planet far, far away! We don’t need their ghosts making a nuisance of themselves. LOL
It’s the old people who vote and watch 60 Minutes. It’s the idiots in the middle who seem oblivious to reality. They tend to base everything on one or two issues to the exclusion of everything else and don’t understand that the people who claim to believe like they do on those few issues are screwing up their lives with the “everything else”. Why people who will never make a 6 figure salary in their lives would vote for people who keep lowering the tax rates for the wealthy while reducing everyone else’s benefits is beyond me.
When your sources of news are Fox News, talk radio, and what you heard at the tavern, cogent reflection on reality is not in the cards. I have a feeling that they missed the part of the Bible that told them that when what is prophesized fails to materialize you have a fraud, not a true voice of G-d. They keep listening to people who have been shown to be liars. It is a form of mental illness, not a rational response in any form.
What do I know. My usual response to people ranting about abortions is to simply tell them that if they don’t like them, don’t have one. Which is really confusing to them for some reason. Then I follow up with something along the lines of “I don’t like Fords. Do I get to tell you, you can’t buy a Ford? If you are going to get to tell someone else how to live their lives, sooner or later they are going to tell you how you have to live yours.” They generally lose the thread and can’t understand the relationship.
They generally lose the thread and can’t understand the relationship.
You have my sympathy! And it used to happen to me a lot… I haven’t bothered trying for some time. It’s an exercise in futility. I learned that trying to use logic, common sense and even real morals, all fail when confronted by that most glaring example of retro-genetics (throwbacks) the ‘True Believer!!'(tm) The only thing you can really do to change them, is kill them. *shrug*
They also prove that the World (especially the USA for some reason in the past 60 years or so, but certainly not only the USA) breeds an unusually high percentage of true *simpletons*. The ONLY logic they understand, and once embedded it CANNOT be changed, is ‘If A then B’! Everything is *Absolute!* to them. They have a very narrow tunnel-visioned, single-minded purpose. They would have made the Third Reich proud, and I suspect many have some form of genetic link. 😉
They are drones. They are used by the unscrupulous and the unethical. They are the American equivalent of most suicide-bombers. They are programed, turned on, and let loose to wreak havoc by their masters. All you can hope to do to avert disaster is get them before they get you. Unfortunately, most people, even the sane, consider these drones human and won’t do anything to stop them. *shrug*
Stupidity is it’s own reward.
IMNSHO of course. 😉
Binary thinking is all the rage, although the social sciences call it manichaeism. News flash: the world is analog, deal with it.
In other news, the area in and around Brisbane has been getting its butt kicked by the weather butterfly lately – tornadoes followed by floods. It’s comforting to read about someone else’s state government getting pilloried for “inadequate response”.
True about SEQ. I worked there many years ago. It’s always had it’s share of bad weather, but not like this. And it’s not over yet. Unfortunately, like the CA fires. the damage area is big, so I’m not sure what an *adequate response* is! *shrug* But the States were forced to cut back on resources for emergency services, mostly thanks to Howard cutting their Fed budgets. The SES here are very worried about fires this summer. They are begging the gov for more funding and resources to cope. But the biggest problem is, we have almost no water. The reservoirs are at about 30%. But the weather is crazy. It was 36C here last week, tomorrow is expected to be 16C and snow in the alps! It’ll get worse.
I got up to 20C today but will be back down to -3C tomorrow night.
At least the snow pack provides a gradual source of water, but 30% in the reservoirs is a definite problem. At some point desalination plants are going to have to be built or areas abandoned because of the drought, which might be the new normal weather pattern.
An old police sergeant told me that the proper manning standard was “too many people if nothing is happening and not enough if anything goes down.” We use the National Guard to fill in when there are problems, but the military adventurism of the Hedgemony has really damaged that resource. That was a major problem in the response to Katrina, as the Louisiana National Guard’s equipment [communications and swamp vehicles] was in Iraq. Now people aren’t joining the Guard because they are concerned that what had always been a part-time job could mean a year+ away from job and family in a war zone.
We are supposed to be building a desalination plant that’s supposed to take care of one third of our fresh water needs. Howard opposed it (costs money), Rudd has approved it in principle., but wants a new environmental study done, but the State Gov is jacking up about that (especially since they have to pay for the study). Politics as usual.
I (and many others) no longer think this is a drought. We think this is the new norm, but the problem is that nobody has any accurate idea how long this new *norm* will last! *shrug*
I blogged that using the Nat Guard was the dumbest thing the Bushmoron cartel did back in 2004. I still don’t believe the military was so stupid as to allow it! It’s dumb for so many reasons! And Americans (for the most part), still don’t get it!
Whole World is insane.
Oh, as for the snow melt making it into the reservoirs… That *used* to be the case. Say hello to that wonderful concept called… ‘Privatization’! The definition of which is: Taking something that works and making sure it doesn’t work and that the stupid public will pay through the nose for!
Howard privatized everything he could get his greedy hands on! We used to have a great service run by MMBW (Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works). They were a Vic Gov agency responsible for water and sewerage (mainly). Now we have Melbourne Water, City West Water and South East Water. None of the three like each other or wants to work with the others (they are, after all, private corporations) and went so far as to ensure their wouldn’t be any cooperation by convincing the Gov that it was necessary to remove the aging old pipes linking the three networks together because the cost of upgrading them would mean that prices would have to rise a lot, and they had an election coming. 🙂 So, there is no way to move water from one system that has an excess to another that doesn’t have enough. 🙂
It’s the same with Electricity, Gas, Rail, etc. All the services and utilities were privatized and prices have been increasing ever since, but the actual services have been deteriorating. Case in point: Yesterday a woman was killed when her car was hit by an express train on a level crossing in peak hour because the signals and boom gates didn’t function. Apparently, they had been serviced for a minor problem the day before. So a minor fault became a major problem and someone was killed. Happens all the time since privatization!
Doncha love Capitalism?
Privatization is, was, and always will be a rip off. JEB did it to Florida and it is responsible for a lot of out problems because of course the prices keep going up, and there is no way of stopping it. I am not aware of as single case of privatization that was not more expensive than the old public system over a 5 year span.
Private water systems have to be the dumbest idea ever presented. What happens if they fail to provide water? What choice does the customer have? Did the customer get to select which water company to buy from? What is the advantage of privatization if the service is a monopoly?
All monopolies should be public owned. That is the only way of controlling costs. Ny definition, there is no competition for a monopoly.
Well, in the US, the woman’s family would at least get a major settlement in the lawsuit that would follow any such accident, unless “tort reform” was part of Howard’s package.
It will probably take a decade to get the National Guard back to its former level, and then only if the Feds keep their hands off the troops.