Misery Loves Company

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

If "pro-lifers" were really serious about what they say, they would stop wasting their time and energy trying to make abortions illegal (without any penalties for the mother, I might add), and spend more time advocating for birth control, building a health care system that aids all pregnant women regardless of income, and work to adopt all kinds of children, not just white ones.

But they don't do that. All they do is scream "murder" and wave around rubber fetuses and try to intimidate and manipulate people. The only ones that are helped by this attitude are the so-called "leaders" of the "pro-life" movement who make a hefty bundle off their slack-jawed followers. They do the same thing with immigration, too: scream bloody murder about Mexicans or Asians or whoever, but they don't see that in order to stop that kind of immigration you have to work to make all those other countries happy and prosperous. That way, people can be free to live where they were born, or leave for reasons other than just where they can find the best jobs. And corporations can move to other countries for reasons other than finding the cheapest workforce. It's a win-win situation, but it's not as easy a sell as blaming someone else for your miserable life.

But the slack-jaws, unfortunately, are too stupid or too scared to realize they're being suckered. They hate the idea of anyone actually enjoying sex, or being happy or well-paid at their jobs. Instead of trying to build a world where everyone can be happy, they'd rather build a world where everyone is just as miserable as they are. I guess they just want the company.

The Party Of Death...For Profit

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

If you want to know what the right wing is up to, listen to what they're accusing the left of doing. There's a new book out, called Party Of Death, which tries to make the case that Democrats in particular and left-wingers in general are lovers of death, mainly because of their "pro-choice" stance on the abortion issue.

The right likes to proclaim itself as a champion of "life" with their attempts to make abortions illegal, even though they seem to be reluctant to actually charge the mother with murder. Of course if that "life" happens to have brown skin or speak a language other than English, well, those people aren't really human, anyway. Unless they're willing to be useful stooges, like Colin Powell. I don't doubt that there are those who really believe that just the stigma of illegality is going to prevent a desperate woman from finding ways to have an abortion, with or without a doctor's help. And no doubt there are those who believe that the leaders who they are entrusting so much faith in would never, ever have an abortion themselves. They're the ones I feel sorry for most, because they are being used, just as they've always been used by fear mongers.

A closer look, however, reveals the true culture of corruption and death behind the book: it's being published by Regnery Publishing, which is one of numerous fronts for right-wing propaganda. Regnery made a fortune selling books that told people about how evil Bill Clinton was, books that were pushed on right wing radio and other outlets pandering to people's fears. For the right, manipulating gullible people for power and profit is just par for the course.

A Smattering Of News

I realize things have been a bit slow here, but as always there are good reasons: yesterday I went to work processing IRS forms: I can't go into any details of course, except to say it was a lot of sorting. I don't work for the IRS directly, I work for a temp service that has been contracted by another company that has a contract with the IRS to process these forms. It actually does make sense if you think about it: subcontracting and all that.

I had to get up at 4:30 am in order to shower and get dressed and be out of the house by 5:15 in order to catch the bus and get to work by 7. That's right, it takes more than an hour and a half to get there by bus because of the roundabout way the bus has to go. If I had a car it would take me about fifteen to twenty minutes because it's a straight shot up the highway. So an hour and a half there and an hour and a half back, that works out to an 11-hour workday, which of course will make it more difficult to get the reports out. But in time I will be able to afford a car again, and that will help.

I didn't work today because I had to go to an interview for a job at Coca-Cola, answering customer service calls. It's a good job, paying about $11 an hour, and if I do well they may want to pick me up permanently. Of course it's my goal to make the radio gig a career, more on that in a bit. The interview was up in Dunwoody, a long way away but not bad to get to via MARTA. Actually, it's about the same amount of time it takes me to get to the IRS job. It wasn't really an interview, though, I was only there for about fifteen minutes to do a quick grammar and spelling test. I got all dressed up for it, too; I even bought a new dress shirt for the occasion because all my other dress shirts needed to be cleaned. When I was finished with work on Tuesday, I walked over to the nearby Target to pick up a dress shirt but the only ones they had cost $25, and I will not pay that much for a shirt. I still needed one, though, so I walked over to the Macy's at a nearby mall and found a great shirt on sale for $15 (regular price was $40). I told my friend Phyllis about this and after my interview today she took me out to get two more shirts at another Macy's nearer to where she lives. If the Coca-Cola job pans out I'll probably need them, too...

On an aside, if the state of Georgia outside of the Atlanta metropolitan area (and even inside of it when you're talking about Cobb and Gwinnett County and the people in north Fulton County) weren't populated by a bunch of backwater, slack-jawed yokels who care more about the Confederate past than they do about Georgia's future, we'd probably have a decent statewide public transit system, with money going to MARTA and other outlets to help move people around the state. But MARTA is the only major public rail system in the country that gets no money at all from the state, because the rednecks have been brainwashed into believing that only losers and "Africans" (you know the word I really mean, the word they use privately among themselves) ride public transportation and they don't want any of their money paying for either of them. All you hear from right wing propaganda is that MARTA (which they say means "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta") is supposed to "show a profit", which is pure horse-shit: the "profit" shown by public transportation comes indirectly, and would actually help Atlanta's horrid traffic conditions. If we can get the Cup O' Joe show out to them via the Head On Radio Network maybe we can start talking a little sense into them.

Which brings me to the radio news, and some of it's good. A donor who wishes to remain anonymous has generously purchased a new mixer and a new microphone for me to use when the show goes live. And that brings me to the deal with the fundraiser: what's important is not the money so much as it is about what I need the money for: namely the equipment that I need to get in order to do the live show. The audio stuff is actually the least expensive of all the things I need, what's holding up the live broadcast is my current computer system, which is too slow to run the software I'll need to run to do a live show. And even that's not really expensive: in fact all I'll need is a tower (no taller than 21") with a motherboard that has about a gig of memory and a 1G or faster processing chip. I can use the hard drives I have. There are even some good places where you can by a refurbished machine for a very decent price. If anyone wants to discuss it with me in more detail, please feel free to email me and we'll talk.

Again, this is a very big deal: the Head On Radio Network is going to be a very crucial part of countering the propaganda from the right. Guys like Ben Domenech are hooked into a well-financed system that allows them to keep fighting and not have to worry about "putting food on their family", we on the left have no such political apparatus, at least not yet. At present we have to rely on support from people who care enough to help us build the foundation we'll need not only to combat the right, but to build the kind of world we all hope to live in. Because winning the war against the right wing is only the first part: even if we manage to defeat them politically, we have to be able to communicate what we want the future to be.

New report tomorrow, I promise.

Politics And Religion

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

There's been more talk than usual over the last few weeks about the role of religion in politics. The First Amendment states very clearly that the government should not establish any "official" religion. There are, unfortunately, all too many people in this country, and people in positions of power, who would like to change that and turn the US into a Christian theocracy.

Frankly, I don't know what they're so afraid of. The truth is that an atheist or an agnostic in this country isn't going to get elected to any position higher than dog catcher, and the higher up on the national scene you go, the more religious you're expected to be. And I for one am very uncomfortable with this public showing of religious faith as a pre-requisite for public office. I don't claim to know much about anything concerning God, but I do know that politics and religion make a very bad mix, as we've seen in Afghanistan. And I disagree with those who say that any society that is not grounded in religion or religious principles is like anarchy: if we can have immorality with religion, we can certainly have morality without it.

Simply put, what I believe is none of anyone's business, and what anyone else believes is none of my business, and that's the way it should be. As far as I'm concerned, anyone is free to believe anything they want, but I draw the line when people write laws telling me what I should and shouldn't believe. Let's keep politics grounded on what happens in this life, and let God tend to God's business.

What Was That About The Schools?

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Just as in VietNam, the chickenhawks on the right, who never met a war they didn't want other people to fight, are complaining that the media isn't reporting any of the "good news" that's going on in Iraq, in particular all the wonderful new schools that are supposedly being built. But maybe sending reporters to the schools isn't such a good idea:

According to an article in the Washington Post, which to the best of my knowledge was not plagiarized, armed insurgents burst into a high-school classroom, accused the teacher of being an agent for the CIA and Israeli intelligence and beheaded him. Most students ran from the class, but some, apparently, stayed to watch. Many stopped coming to school after that... Gee, ya think? And all this while Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold were touring Iraq, or at least those parts of it where you still have a fifty-fifty chance of walking around without being blown to bits, in what in all likelihood is a futile attempt to get the Iraqis to "get their act together" as far as government is concerned.

Tristero, writing on Digby's blog, had an even better suggestion: let's get Ben Domenech a camcorder and a plane ticket to Iraq and let him report on all the school openings and other good news going on over there. Barring that, maybe Bush can just give another speech to the press to convince them how wonderful things are. Or maybe he could do like the insurgents did and behead a reporter in front of the rest of them. That should keep a lid on things for a while.

In Loving Memory

Six months ago today, my wife Cathy died. Nearly three months before that, she went into the hospital for good. I'm halfway through the traditional "mourning" period, but I'll be mourning her for the rest of my life. I think about her every day, and while I have no regrets about how she died (there was nothing anyone could have done for her: her pancreatitis was genetic and is usually fatal), I still miss her terribly, and sometimes it's a struggle just to keep going.

Because of current politics, there's been some discussion about religion here in the blogosphere, which was one of the few things my wife and I ever argued about. Cathy believed that it was God that brought us together, and for a long time, I believed it as well; now, I'm not so sure. It has crossed my mind that if God interfered enough to bring us together, why didn't he interfere to improve her health so that she wouldn't have suffered so much before she died? If you look through the archives of this site, you'll see that she was in and out of the hospital for more than two years, and the last three months were the worst.

Neither Cathy nor I ever asked for much out of life, but of all the people I ever met, she was the least deserving of that kind of suffering. Not that she wasn't happy: she loved me dearly, and despite how sick she always was, and how poor we were, she always said that her time with me was the happiest time of her life, and of course I felt the same way. I don't feel remorse that she died as much as I feel like we should have had more time together, and that she would have been healthy enough to do more of the things we wanted to do.

The question of what lies after death is one that humans have pondered long before anything resembling civilization arose, and we know as much today as we did twenty thousand years ago; that is to say, nothing, and I don't claim any special knowledge one way or the other. As I've always said, the only thing I know for sure is that I don't know for sure. If there were truly a way for the dead to communicate from beyond, my Cathy would undoubtedly have done so by now. Since she hasn't, I can only assume that such a communication is either impossible, or that there is no life after death. But I will find out, when my time comes. So will all of you, eventually.

It was only last week that I experienced that feeling of mortality, that sharp realization that I imagine everyone gets sooner or later, that I will die. Time for me flows swiftly and I am acutely aware of its passing. I remember days when I was a young boy in elementary school as if they were yesterday, and at times Iimagine that if I could somehow go back in time, things would be different, that I would handle them better. But then I come to my senses and realize that that simply isn't true: I am still pretty much the same person I was thirty-five years ago: lonely, scared, and cursed (or blessed?) with being different. Only with Cathy have I ever felt diferently, only with her was I ever whole. And when that realization hit me, I was afraid.

Some people are afraid of the afterlife because they fear some extra-earthly retribution for the crimes they have committed. I for one no longer believe in heaven or hell: in fact with all the insanity I see on this planet, there are times when I imagine that this is hell, and that we have to earn our escape from it. I do not fear the afterlife in whatever form it takes. I fear no extra-earthly judgement because unlike so many others I understand who I am, and know where my shortcomings are. And because I am unafraid to say that any being that sentences someone to eternal bliss or eternal damnation based upon what people do in less than a century of life on Earth is not a being that deserves worship or obedience.

I notice a lot of people take this attitude towards both God and work: you do what God wants because God has the power to punish you, you do what the boss tells you because the boss has the power to take away your means of survival. It's not something you are expected to challenge. I've been told that I'm not normal, in the sense that I don't play the game very well (when I do at all). I just have a lot of problems with the idea of a dishonest day's work for dishonest day's pay, and with the idea of public deception as a means of appeasing an all-knowing, all-seeing deity.

But still, I'm afraid. And what I fear the most is that there is no afterlife, that I will never see my Cathy again to tell her how much I love her, how much I've missed her, and to welcome her into my arms and face whatever lies beyond this world together. I wish I could know for sure, but since I don't, I am dedicating this day to the memory of my beloved wife, and hoping that we will welcome each other again.

The Lord Helps Those Who Help Themselves

According to an article in the Seattle Times, Barbara Bush has donated money to a hurricane-relief fund (the article doesn't specify how much) on the condition that the money be used to buy educational software from a company run by her son Neil. And it's not the first time this has happened. According to the article:

Two years ago, the Houston school district board wrestled with conflict-of-interest concerns over the Ignite program. Neil Bush had helped raise $115,000 for the district's philanthropic fund from donors who insisted the money be spent on his company's software. The district accepted the donations and used them to pay half the costs of new Ignite software, about $10,000 per school.

Neil Bush founded the Austin-based company in 1999.

So what the Bush family is doing is essentially giving money to itself on the pretense that it's being done for "charitable purposes", and of course, they get to deduct it all from their taxes, which after all are only for little people to pay.

In the meantime, Cuba, which finished second in the World Baseball Classic, wants to donate its winnings to victims of Hurricane Katrina. According to WBC rules, the second-place team is entitled to 7% of the profits from the WBC. But since Cuba, as a condition of being allowed to play, agreed to forfeit its prize money, it is being refused:

A Major League Baseball official said the deal that allowed Cuba to play in the tournament, which was reached in February with the U.S. State Department and agreed to by Cuba, made it "crystal clear" that Havana would not receive any share of the profits, even for charity.

"Cuba doesn't have a cut of the proceeds of the tournament, and there is nothing for Cuba to donate," MLB spokesman Patrick Courtney said by telephone from New York.

Of course, technically, Mr. Courtney is correct, and obviously Castro just wants to score some political points by making a big deal out of donating money to the US, but you know, so what? Castro is what, seventy, eighty years old? When he goes, and I doubt he has more than a decade left, Cuba is in for a lot of changes; probably, hopefully for the better. As in all cases, I am for the Cuban people, even if I am not necessarily for their leaders. As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between Castro and Bush is the amount of money and power they have. The Bush family plays politics to help themselves financially, Castro plays politics to help himself politically.

The MLB should let the money go to Katrina victims just because it's the decent thing to do. And while it's perfectly legal for someone donating money to specify how it should be used, it either ought to be illegal for it to go to a company run by the family of the donator, or the organization should simply refuse the offer: especially since, with the Bush people, very little of that money will actually go to help the people it is meant to.

(via Daily Kos)

Addendum: Top Ten Things Major League Baseball Should Do With Cuba's Prize Money

10) Give it to Pete Rose, see if he can double it

9) Buy Barry Bond's steroids, give 'em to Congressional Democrats

8) Send It To Me!

7) Hire some guy to punch Bill O'Reilly right in the face

6) Buy out Diebold, have Mickey Mouse win the next election

5) Cigarettes for Duke Cunningham's new husband in prison

4) Hookers to give blow jobs to Republicans so they'll stop being so damn uptight

3) Get the Devil Rays some decent uniforms

2) Two words: Impeachment Fund!

1) A Hot Dog and a Beer for everyone!

Add One More To The Surplus Population

My good friend Dr. Laura Block has just given birth to an eight-pound, nine-ounce baby boy named Alex! It's the first child for her and her husband Danny, and I look forward to teaching him to say goofy and annoying things! Congratulations to the happy couple!

Now I Get It

Georgia10, who is one of the few bright spots in the cliquish Daily Kos, points out that media coverage of the violence in Iraq, which was actually approaching some semblance of reality, has "all but disappeared" since Mr. Bush began speechifying about how freedom is on the march, etc. etc. I have to admit I found it hard to believe, but after watching the video of his speech I understood immediately why this turnaround took place.

Steal This Post

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

The huge uproar over the Washington Post hiring right-wing blogger Ben Domenech is just the latest example of what's wrong with this country: we have a so-called "professional" media that's being led by the nose by a well-organized, well-funded right-wing propaganda machine. It's bad enough that Domenech is a political hack, what's worse is that he's also a plagiarist. Though to be fair, since the Post has been acting more like stenographers than journalists when it comes to the Bush administration, I guess plagiarism is just the logical next step. And to make things even worse, the Post throws gallons of gas on the fire when they snottily insist that this is just hysteria over having a conservative voice on the website.

The sad part is that in the Republican Party, criminal behavior is rewarded rather than punished. The only real crime for Republicans is not being powerful enough to get away with it. Ends, meet means. Even if Domenech winds up getting canned because of this, he'll find something else. There's plenty of money to be made among the wolves and sheep of the right wing. Meanwhile, those of us trying to restore a little sanity wind up having to beg for scraps.

It's remarkable to me that the same people who bitch and moan about Social Security, public transportation, or any kind of public works project because it goes against the spirit of "rugged individualism" have no problem tossing big piles of money at untalented hacks. Looks to me like it's socialism for them, and capitalism for everyone else.

The Intelligent People Who Run The World

From my good friend Phil Thompson:

George Bush is visiting Queen Elizabeth of England. He asks her, "Your Majesty, how do you run such an efficient government? Are there any tips you can give me?"

"Well," says the Queen, "the most important thing is to surround yourself with intelligent people."

Bush frowns. "But how do I know the people around me are really intelligent?"

The Queen takes a sip of tea. "Oh, that's easy. You just ask them to answer an intelligence riddle."

The Queen pushes a button on her intercom. "Please send the Prime Minister in here, would you?"

Tony Blair walks into the room. "Your Majesty..."

The Queen smiles. "Answer me this, please, Tony. Your mother and father have a child. It is not your brother and it is not your sister. Who is it?"

Without pausing for a moment, Blair answers, "That would be me!"

"Yes! Very good!" says the Queen.

Back at the White House, Bush calls in his vice president, Dick Cheney.

"Dick, answer this for me. Your mother and your father have a child. It's not your brother and it's not your sister. Who is it?"

"I'm not sure," says the vice president. "Let me get back to you on that one."

Dick Cheney goes to his advisers and asks every one, but none can give him an answer. Finally, he ends up in the men's room and recognizes Colin Powell's shoes in the next stall. Dick shouts, "Colin! Can you answer this for me? Your mother and father have a child and it's not your brother or your sister. Who is it?"

Colin Powell yells back, "That's easy. It's me!"

Dick Cheney smiles. "Thanks!"

Cheney goes back to the Oval Office and asks to speak with Bush. "Say, I did some research and I have the answer to that riddle. It's Colin Powell."

Bush gets up, stomps over to Dick Cheney, and angrily yells into his face,

"No, you idiot! It's Tony Blair!"

Competence

Afghanistan, Land Of The Free

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

With all the attention that's been focused on Iraq, it's easy to forget that it was actually the second country we invaded after 9/11. And while Iraq has been a far more spectacular failure in terms of occupation, Afghanistan is just as bad off. The truth is that the US, through its puppet regime led by Halliburton employee Hamid Karzai, really only has control over the city of Kabul. The rest is ruled by local warlords. The Taliban, the ones who ran Afghanistan before we came in, have re-established themselves across the country and are no doubt biding their time, waiting to resume control when the opportunity presents itself.

I bring all this up because of a news story that recently came out about Abdul Rahman. Mr. Rahman is facing execution in Afghanistan for the crime of converting to Christianity. According to Afghanistan's constitution, a constitution we pushed for, mind you, Islamic law takes precedence over all else, including individual rights.

Let's not kid ourselves that this is a purely Muslim problem. There are plenty of "good Christians" in this country who would like to make it a crime to practice any religion except Christianity. Like their Muslim counterparts, they want a Christian theocracy where non-Christians would be, at best, second-class citizens. Our Founding Fathers made it clear that we should have not only freedom of religion, but freedom from religion as well. I hope we can save Mr. Rahman, but I also hope we can save ourselves.

It's Banner Time!

Hey Kids!
Seeing as how I have about a week and a half before I begin my new job, I've had a little more time on my hands to work on the site, aesthetically speaking, as I'm sure you've noticed. I've also taken the time to create some more creative banners for the blog, the show, and the reports. Here they are:

   
   

   












      

All you have to do is to right-click and save the image, and add the link to the blog. I made long banners and tall ones for your bloggy needs. I think they look great myself, of course I'm a little biased.

Addendum: Sorry to say the fundraiser is going like crap. I am trying like hell to gear up to do a live radio show on the fledgling Head On Radio Network being put together by my friends at the White Rose Society, but I seriously need to upgrade my equipment in order to do so. You can find more information on the donations page concerning that, but if I'm going to get the show off the ground, I really do need all the help I can get. Once the show is up and running we can sell ads making it self-sufficient so that I won't have to ask for donations at all, which is the way I would prefer it. To be honest, I think it's wrong that we have to beg for scraps like this while the right wing has built a huge welfare system for their own people. But as much as I dislike it, at present it's the only way I can continue to do the reports and the radio show.

What White Rose is doing in creating the Head On Network is an important step in regaining our voice. As opposition to the administration's policies grow, we'll need a means to put truly progressive voices on the air and into people's homes and workplaces where they'll be an effective counter to the propaganda on the right. Once things start to go our way again that voice will become louder and stronger. And if things get as bad as some of us fear they might, we'll all be in the slammer anyway.

So please, donate what you can. Don't send the rent money, don't send what you can't afford, but if you can spare anything, send it. And especially if you can afford to be a subscriber, that's just as great. When I did my hundredth show, I was looking for a hundred people to donate $5 a month in order to keep a roof over my head until this thing takes off, I'm still well short of that goal. And of course donations of equipment, either used, or purchased new, are always welcome in lieu of actual cash. Thanks again to all those who have already donated, and thanks in advance to those who choose to donate now!

Oilfinger

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

An article by Greg Palast in the British newspaper The Guardian (via The Sideshow) makes a point that I hadn't considered up until now: that the war on Iraq was waged the way it was intentionally. According to Palast, the war wasn't about stealing Iraq's oil, it was about limiting it's production so as to maintain and increase the value of OPEC's oil, as led by Saudi Arabia. This in turn would benefit America's oil producers, who have seen their annual profits triple, along with the price of a gallon of gas, since the war began.

Palast's source is a supposedly secret, 323-page State Department document that outlines a plan for a new Iraqi government that would nationalize its oil wells and be on friendlier terms with OPEC than Saddam Hussein was. Maybe they honestly believed that creating such a puppet government would be easy, or maybe they anticipated and welcomed the insurgency in order to have a good excuse to keep oil prices high. Either way, Big Oil here and abroad still gets filthy rich, so I guess things are working out just fine for them.

The story reminded me of the James Bond movie Goldfinger: where it turned out that the villain made it seem like he wanted to steal all the gold at Fort Knox, but what he really intended to do was irradiate it with a nuclear weapon, in effect taking it off the market so as to increase the value of his own gold. But Goldfinger was only a movie, and therefore in the end he got caught, and killed, by Bond. In real life, the criminals are much smarter. In real life, it seems, crime pays.

How Baseball Will Save The World

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Ken Burns said that in the end, America will be remembered for two things: jazz and baseball. Despite its obscure beginnings, baseball as we know it today is a purely American sport, and one of the oldest professional sports in the world, with some teams over a hundred and thirty years old. The World Baseball Classic, which finished yesterday evening when the team from Japan defeated the team from Cuba, is the first true World Series; featuring teams from every continent. Like soccer's World Cup, it will be held every four years.

But even though the team from America didn't win the tournament, America still won because baseball is just one of those things that people love about America. Some people just don't understand that it's things like baseball and other popular culture that made America a global power. Not our military, which has only been successful when we've used it to defend ourselves. Fun, represented by baseball, is our best export.

We brought baseball to Japan, who made it their own game and now have stars like Suzuki Ichiro who are the equal of anyone who has ever played the game. We brought baseball to Cuba, who proved in the tournament that you don't have to earn a million dollars to play like a million dollars. And one day, and I won't say it'll happen soon, there will come a time when we'll figure out just how important baseball is, that the things that make life worth living are more important than just getting by. One day, we'll realize that having fun is more important than making war, and then, all our fighting will be on the playing field.

Hooray For Crime!

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

As we hear more and more so-called "conservatives" starting to speak out on the failures of the Bush administration, it's become clear to this observer that, as NY Times columnist Paul Krugman points out, it's the movement itself that's flawed. As I've mentioned before, "conservatives" have been on the wrong side of every major issue since this country was founded.

Want to know the ugly truth? There are no conservatives. There are no Republicans. Conservativism isn't a philosophy, it's sophistry, a convenient excuse to sucker people into thinking that there's anything more to what they're doing than robbing people blind. The Republican party is just a front for the criminals working behind the scenes, their only supporters are the ones who are in on the scam (or want to be) or who don't know they're being scammed. And the leaders are the people who understand that the best criminals are the ones who control the police rather than fight them.

And the really ugly truth is that they continue to get away with it. Whatever else you can say about the failures of the Bush administration, in one regard they are extremely successful: they've helped make a very few people very rich, at the expense of all of us. Once this crop is gone, however that's accomplished, another will take its place and the cycle will continue. And that will go on as long as people find that lifestyle glamorous, and as long as there are gullible sheep to fleece. Hey, no one ever got poor by underestimating the intelligence of the general public. So here's to the Bush administration! Hooray for crime!

Apologies Aren't Enough

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Three years ago, the United States began its illegal invasion of Iraq. Those of us who knew something about history knew exactly what would happen: the Iraqi army, rather than facing a fight they knew they couldn't win, simply melted away into the population, and waited, and planned. Even then, we could have still won the peace in Iraq if we had put an organized effort into making the lives of ordinary Iraqis better. And there were people, including some US soldiers, who tried in small ways to do just that.

But the leaders who brought us into the war, the cowards of the right wing propaganda machine who waved the flag in our faces whenever someone objected, and the assorted misinformed and easily manipulated drones that put them into office in the first place were too busy demanding apologies from the war's critics and screaming "Mission Accomplished" to act on what was going on. Now, since we've apparently run out of other ideas, we've just decided to drop more bombs on them, and try to sucker us into going to war with Iran.

It would be easy to just demand an apology from them, but in the wake of all this death and torture, that's no longer enough. If they had any sense of decency or honor they would, at the very least, resign from their positions and let someone else try to clean up the mess they made. But we all know that's not going to happen. Decency and honor are for wimps, after all. The only question for me is how far they'll go to keep themselves in power and out of prison.

Republican Thinking, Explained Simply

Human Protect At All Costs

Not Human Kill If It Gets In The Way

Why Does This Dog Hate Murka?

"Don't Fire 'Till We've Already Lost!"

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

I'm not sure what Senator Reid and the Democratic leadership have in mind as far as strategy goes. When Sen. Russ Feingold brought up his resolution to censure Mr. Bush, which is a pretty weak response to breaking laws that forced another corrupt Republican President to resign in disgrace, the other Democrats ran for cover. It's possible that for the Democratic leaders, it's all a matter of timing. But given their track record over the last twenty years or so, I have my doubts. "Don't fire 'till we've already lost" seems like a pretty lousy strategy.

Many years ago, when the Democrats were still in power in Congress, there was a dispute over a Congressional race, and the Democratic leaders used their political power to favor the Democratic candidate. It was this event that made many Republicans start to listen to people like Newt Gingrich, who said that they should start treating Democrats not as political opponents but as enemies of America. Which they did.

The Republicans are far more brazen about their partisanship than the Democratic leadership through the sixties and seventies ever were. To them, there is no such thing as "timing", they have one strategy: attack, attack, attack. But winning political power is one thing, knowing what to do with it is another. And since all they seem to know what to do with power when they get it is to get more of it, eventually their time will run out. When they fall, they're going to fall in a huge way. The only question is whether they'll take the rest of the country with them when they do.

It's Fundamentalism, Not Religion

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's daily "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

I don't have a problem with whatever religious beliefs people have. They have a right to them, and they have a right to express them, and they have a right to participate in government as voters and as candidates. But I do have a problem with fundamentalists, people who believe they are so right about Life, The Universe And Everything that they feel the need to use the force of law to get others to conform. That's why the Founding Fathers wrote the First Amendment, which they seem to either have forgotten or just don't care about. For the record, denying a fundamentalist the power to rule over us doesn't infringe on their rights because they never had that right in the first place.

Just like conservativism, fundamentalism is a great campaign tool but a lousy governing philosophy. In a democratic society, you have to accept that there are going to be people who disagree with you, and respect their opinions. Of course fundamentalists don't believe in democracy, so I guess that kind of respect isn't necessary for them.

People who believe they are never wrong never grow, and societies that allow these people to have power stagnate. Sure, they tend to last longer than democracies because ruling over oppressed subjects is simpler than dealing with well-informed citizens, but it isn't a very pleasant life for leaders or followers alike. In my world, the fundamentalist would be allowed to continue to believe what they want, in their world, I wouldn't have any choice in the matter. And neither would anyone else.

The Anchor Of Conservativism

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's daily "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Now that the Republican Party has proven, yet again, that they're incapable of governing, apologists for "conservativism" are once more claiming that this group wasn't really conservative. As I've mentioned before, the definition of what "conservative" actually is changes with every failure, so that when the next crop of self-centered, greedy, racist hedonistic incompetents show up hawking the latest fad, they can announce to the world that yes, this group are the real conservatives! Until of course they screw things up again and the cycle repeats itself.

To be fair, there are, and have been, some real conservatives in this country: they stood for the British during the Revolutionary war. They stood for slave-owners, and businessmen who used slave labor. And they stood against pretty much anything that makes life better for anyone except the opportunistic few who see themselves as the "motor of the world" from whom all things emerge. And I'll give them credit for consistency, because no matter how badly or how often the latest batch of conservatives screw up, they still refuse to accept the fact that conservativism, while an effective campaign tool, is a complete and utter failure as a governing philosophy.

Liberal policies are what made this country great. Liberals freed us from the British, fought to end slavery, demanded that a day's work equaled a day's pay. And they did it all with the anchor of conservativism tied firmly around their necks. Maybe someday we'll learn to get rid of that anchor, or at least lighten it enough so that we can walk upright instead of being dragged to the ground.

Let's Not Fool Ourselves

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's daily "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Well, if you read the news over the weekend, you'd think that the Bush administration is in serious jeopardy. Senator Russ Feingold is planning on introducing legislation to formally censure Mr. Bush for authorizing illegal wiretaps against US citizens. Also, thirty Congressmen and women, all Democrats, have signed a measure looking to open impeachment proceedings. Even Republicans in greater numbers are openly speaking out against Mr. Bush.

Don't be fooled. First of all, Feingold's censure and the impeachment proceedings, as they're being introduced by Democrats, will go nowhere. And while Republicans in Congress are making a big show about "opposing the President", they're busy putting together legislation that would retroactively legalize all the illegal things the administration has been doing. And of course, the so-called "professional" media are still suppressing anti-Republican news: nearly half a million people marched in Chicago over the weekend speaking out against Mr. Bush and other Republicans, yet it received very little attention.

Strangely enough, John McCain, who has sometimes been one of the administration's most vocal critics, has suddenly become Bush's best buddy. I get the funny feeling that the GOP and their financial backers are planning on running this "moderate" in 2008 so that they have a better-looking mask for their anti-American policies. Am I being paranoid? I don't know: with this crowd it's hard to tell what's really going on. So let's not get fooled by appearances.

The "Liberal Media" At Work

The headline is, of course, totally untrue. No Democrats have been "indicted". The story is about

The head of the Republican Party, launching a broad indictment of the Democratic Party six months before midterm elections, is expected to charge Friday that the opposition can't find an election-year slogan, let alone agree on a broad agenda.

A real journalist would have used a headline like the one they used when you clicked on the link to the actual story: GOP Chairman to Single Out Kerry, Clinton. But I forget, there aren't many real journalists left, and certainly not at CNN.

They get paid how much?

(click on picture for link to story)

The Sanctity Of Status

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's daily "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

The Republicans in Congress are considering a bill introduced by Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming that would exempt insurance companies from state laws that require them to include contraceptives in their prescription plans. Now I don't know if this bill is going to going to become law, but it is the logical next step once you make abortions illegal; to make it as difficult as possible for people to prevent pregnancies to begin with. No abortions, no birth control, no sex education, no sex outside of marriage, no recreational sex at all.

At least, that's what they say publicly. Anyone who keeps an eye on the Republicans and their supporters know that they're famous for their hypocrisy: what they say in public is completely removed from what they do in private. And if you want to know what they're up to, listen to what they're accusing others of doing.

It's pretty clear that this bill is aimed at the degenrate poor: the ones who either can't afford insurance or can't afford to get these prescriptions without the insurance they have. The rich and powerful will be able to buy all the birth control they want, and if that fails, they'll be able to get abortions whenever they like. No law, no religion, no ideology is going to stop them. And that's the only way any of this makes any sense at all. Because it's obvious to this observer that the laws simply aren't meant for them. They can do anything they want because they have the money and power to get away with it. And they absolutely hate the idea of anyone else having those privileges.

You see, it's not about the sanctity of life, it's about the sanctity of status.

Getting Rid Of The Dinos

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's daily "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

They had a primary election in Texas this week where the incumbent, Henry Cuellar, a man who was famously fondled by George W. Bush at the State Of The Union address, and who is mainly known for his support of Republican policies, barely defeated challenger Ciro Rodriguez. Mr. Rodriguez, a former Congressman himself, was originally considered to be a long shot to defeat Mr. Cuellar, but donations from the blogosphere made him a serious contender. In the end, he lost by about 5500 votes out of 45,000 cast.

Joe Lieberman, another Democrat who has been far too chummy with Republicans, is also facing a serious primary challenge from businessman Ned Lamont. It's a challenge that Mr. Lieberman is taking very seriously, as well he should. It's refreshing to see Democratic voters pushing to remove people like Cuellar and Lieberman from the party. In the past, working with the opposition would be a good thing, but over the last ten years or so, it's hard to see how trying to work with Republicans has done the party, or the country, any good. The GOP is in fact trying to destroy the Democratic Party, and recent history has clearly shown that whenever a Democrat goes out of his way to work with the Republicans, he or she eventually gets stabbed in the back.

What I want to know is, why are any Democrats voting for candidates like Cuellar and Lieberman to begin with? How do they best represent our party if they're working with people who want to destroy them? Personally, I want to see Democrats who will stand up for what we believe in, not just get along to go along. And I think if people see some fighting spirit they'd be more willing to vote for Democrats. But even if we still go down, I'd rather we go down fighting.

A Port Deal We Can Live With

"Good People"

In the comments section, it's being played out:

I see the strident arguments on both sides, I don't see any dishonesty.

I disagree. I see plenty of dishonesty from the so-called "pro-life" side. Dishonesty and self-deception. Check out this video of "pro-life" activists who don't have an answer to the question "What kind of punishment should a woman who has an illegal abortion get?" Even after being active on the issue for two years, they hadn't taken the time to think that one out.

So the interviewer made the next logical assumption: "If there's no punishment for having an abortion, why should it be illegal?" Again, they couldn't seem to figure that out. They seemed to think that the stigma of illegality would be punishment enough. Either way, it seems they've let their emotions get the better of them, or worse, let someone else manipulate them into letting their emotions get the better of them. I'm sorry that I find it hard to take their stance seriously when after a few years they haven't given it any more thought than "it should be illegal". By not thinking it through, they're not being honest with themselves, and they're deceiving themselves about what the issue is really all about and about the attitudes of pro-choice people.

I don't know of any pro-choice person who is "pro abortion" in the sense that they view it as a casual thing, like washing their hair: Sex, pregnancy, abortion, repeat. Nor do I know any pro-choicers who want to (figuratively) put a gun to people's heads and force others to get abortions. Yet that's what the "pro-life" crowd would have us believe. Maybe the "pro-life" crowd thinks it's a simple issue to make abortions illegal, but the truth is that it makes it a lot more complicated, because it gets the State involved.

So for the sake of fairness, I'll answer the question for them: If, as stated in the SD bill, a human life exists from the moment of conception, then aborting it is murder, period. If it was pre-meditated, it's murder in the first degree, and should be treated as such, with all the penalties contained: life imprisonment or execution. And anyone who helped: doctor, husband, or friend, should be tried as abettors. No exceptions for rape, no exceptions for incest, no exceptions for health of the mother. A life is a life is a life, it's as simple as that.

As soon as a woman knows she is pregnant, she should be required to fill out some sort of "life certificate" verified by a doctor. If there is a miscarriage, a criminal investigation ought to be launched to ensure that the mother or someone else didn't do something to intentionally abort the fetus. She could also be found guilty of negligent homicide if she fails to care for it properly, or stays with an abusive husband.

Furthermore, all eggs fertilized during in-vitro fertilization must be brought to term, either in the mother's womb or inserted into a willing "carrier". A life is a life is a life. And these laws should apply equally to all pregnant women whether they be rich heiresses or those on welfare; black, white, or Latino: everyone. Period. And if you're really serious about "the sanctity of life", since there's no statute of limitations on murder, they ought to find, charge, and prosecute everyone who has ever had an abortion since Roe v. Wade, and investigate all miscarriages since then. I'm sure the police will be happy for the overtime.

Straw man arguments? You tell me: if this is about principle, if this is about crime and punishment, then we ought to be consistent. Because if that law was applied equally, I guarantee within a week they'd fight like hell to get Roe v. Wade back.

This is, of course, not to mention the hypocrisy of demanding, on the one hand, that a gametocyte of a few hundred cells or so is the equal of a human being, with all the implied rights, yet on the other decrying as inhuman a bunch of brown people who happen to be living on land we want for whatever reasons so as to kill them.

This is, of course, not to mention casually shrugging off the deaths of thousands in New Orleans because they were "too poor and too black" to get out.

This is, of course, not to mention the hypocrisy of abandoning children once they leave the womb in the name of economic ideology, or the delusion that people are simply going to give up sex.

This is, of course, not to mention the casual ignorance even of the laws of nature: look at the sign behind the two women about how "even animals" protect their young. Do they know that a pregnant rabbit, when faced with great stress, will sometimes absorb its unborn litter? Or that a male lion, on taking control of a pride, will kill off the cubs of its former rival so as to ensure the success of his own cubs? And some species don't care for their young at all. But I digress.

Of course, I keep forgetting that these are "good people", who don't consider that these laws should apply to them as well. They were written, after all, for the degenerate poor, not for them. It will show the utter hypocrisy of these "good people" when they find their own ways of aborting their kids and hushing it up. Of course, hypocrisy is what "good people" are all about. After all, they're our betters, who are we to judge?

What Is The Intent Of South Dakota's Anti-Abortion Law?

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's daily "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Now that Judge Alito is on the bench, states are lining up to be the first one with a test case to challenge Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling legalizing abortions that's been a rallying cry for so-called "conservatives" ever since. First up at the plate is South Dakota, which just signed the most restrictive laws against abortions since pre-Roe days. According to the legislation, anyone performing an abortion is guilty of a class five felony, with a penalty of up to five years in prison and a five thousand dollar fine. That's a bit less than what you would get if you committed first degree murder, so I guess they're not quite ready yet to put an unborn fetus at the same level as an adult.

My question is this: if a woman has a miscarriage, is there a murder investigation to see if it was intentional? Silly question, you say: that's not the intent of the law. But if that's not the intent, then what is? And who is the law meant for? You don't think for one minute that the rich and powerful won't find ways to go around it. Maybe, as in the case with anti-sodomy laws, it's only meant to go after a certain group of people. I think you know who I mean.

I wish I had an easy answer for all this, but I don't, and neither, I suspect, does anyone else. So much of this is political grandstanding, and I don't know who's worse, the people who really believe in the so-called "sanctity of life", or the ones just using it as an issue for their own gain. The only prediction I'll make is that until we start talking about this issue and others honestly, with ourselves and others, this idiocy will continue.

Addendum: Atrios makes a good point:

I've never understood the rape exception to laws forbidding abortion. Aside from it being moral gibberish, how exactly would it work in practice? Would there actually have to be a rape conviction before the exception is triggered, something virtually impossible given the rather short time horizon of pregnancy? Or would a woman simply have to claim to have been raped, and name the alleged assailant.

If it's the latter we can look forward to women making false rape accusations in order to obtain an abortion. If it's the former, it's not really much of an exception.

I guess since the world is a very simple, black-and-white kind of place to the people who push for these laws, they see every issue as being simple. Women who have abortions are bad people who should be punished, period. Unless of course they're good people, in which case the laws just don't apply.

In the comments, Amber said it's all about control, and of course it is, at least in part. If men could have children, abortions would be safe, legal, and a hundred times more common than they are now.

"Not Me!"

Avedon Carol has several quotes from different sites about women who were supposedly "pro-life" yet had no doubts about their own need to have an abortion of their own (or for their children, if it came to it). She describes some of her own experiences:

I had clients confess to having marched against abortion, but the women I talked to had had their epiphany before they walked through our doors; they did not come in still thinking they were better than all the other women who had been in their situation. Maybe I was lucky in working in a local community where women were highly-educated, or maybe things have just gotten a lot uglier in the interim. My anti-choice clients obviously thought they were somehow more virtuous than other women before they found themselves making an appointment for the pregnancy test, but they learned quickly enough that the distinction they thought they had from those other women had been an illusion. I guess conservatives are people who can hold on to that illusion long after the evidence proves otherwise.

I have nothing but sympathy for women who had abortions and regretted it. Their pain is a very personal one, one they'll have to deal with the rest of their lives, but it was their choice to make, not the government's. To say it's wrong for someone else to have an abortion but all right for them exposes their hypocrisy, and their racism. "Not Me!" they say. "My situation is different from those people!"

I think that even if abortion was made illegal, as they say they want, they don't expect it to apply to them. They're "good people" and if something like that ever happens to them no doubt the police will look the other way. All men are created equal, the Declaration of Independence says, but as in Orwell's novel, they've added but some are more equal than others.

Polls: What Are They Good For? Absolutely Nothing!

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's daily "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

More and more polls are coming out showing how unpopular Mr. Bush is: he's hovering at just below 40% nationally, which is about as bad as any President can get that hasn't, say, killed someone in cold blood on national television. Though I'm sure FOX News has a special planned. Maybe Bush can execute one of the prisoners from Abu Ghraib personally, just like that guy in Eddie Adams' Pulitzer Prize winning picture from VietNam. Hey, the executioner was on our side, after all. Just like Saddam before he fell out of favor. Bush can even put on some kind of uniform for the occasion. He likes uniforms.

Bill Clinton's poll numbers were up around the sixty percent area when the Republicans tried to kick him out of office for lying about a blowjob. They didn't give a damn about the polls any more then than they do now. Why should they have to? Their cult members will believe anything they tell them, and since so many of their districts, or should I say asylums, are gerrymandered just for them, they have no worries about getting re-elected. And if all else fails, there's always Diebold.

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad to know that the majority of the country is unhappy with Bush and the Republicans. Most Americans really do agree with liberal policies, at least they do when they find out they're being taken away. But we focus far too much time and energy worrying about the polls when the reality is that the Republicans still have the power to do what they want, when they want. Unless we can turn this discontent into viable political action, the polls are meaningless.

Another Pointless Oscar Thread

As other bloggers have done, I was going to write a long post about how the Oscars are just another form of meaningless competition from an overly-competitive society, and then I thought, screw it. But I'd like to know what you all think about the awards: whether that means who you think the Oscars will go to (or after the fact, who got screwed over), or if you think the whole thing is a pointless exercise or if it's too political, etc., etc.,

Iraq

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's daily "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Someone sent me an email yesterday with some "pictures from Iraq the media is afraid to show us". Since I knew the person who sent them, I knew they weren't going to be pictures of what's been going on at places like Abu Ghraib. They were in fact pictures of US soldiers praying or posing with local Iraqis, there was even one picture of a kid with a sign that read "Thank you, Mr. Bush".

I don't doubt that there are both good and bad things going on in Iraq, and I for one would like to think that things are better for ordinary Iraqis. But I can't ignore the fact that they aren't. It's pretty clear to me that the people who pushed for the war had no idea what they were doing, it was just something they'd been wanting to do for a long time and once the opportunity presented itself they just went and did it. If they had put as much effort into prosecuting the war as they've put into the propaganda behind it, it might not be so bad. Then again, if they were that clear-headed, they would never have invaded in the first place.

It shows how effective the propaganda has been that so many people either don't know or don't care that they're being lied to. They'll send these pictures to each other in an attempt to convince themselves and others that there's some higher purpose behind the war, and they resent any pictures or news that contradict what they've been told by leaders they trust, or that they just don't want to believe. I wish I could say I understood that mindset, and I hope that these people can learn to live with themselves if they ever realize what's really going on over there.

Well, There I Go Again

Obviously I wasn't done with the aesthetic changes to the blog, but I couldn't stand all the white. I wanted the colors to be a little less harsh, but again I wanted to take advantage of the newer features, like emailing and quick-editing of posts.

I'm going to get a little technical here so sorry if it bores you, but I needed to write down what I went through just for my own sake.

When I started the new template, it didn't use tables like the old one: it had CSS divisions. The problem I was having was that I couldn't get the three-column system I was previously using working, so I changed back to a table format. If I can figure out what I was doing wrong with the previous format and correct it, I will, but I'm happy with how it looks for now.

What I'd appreciate is some commentary, perhaps even some screen shots of how it looks at 600x800 and other resolutions so I know what it looks like for everyone else. As always, I based the table size on a percentage rather than a specific size so that it will stretch or shrinh depending on your resolution. I hope the site is easier on everyone's eyes. Comments?

Has The Blogosphere Reached A Crossroads?

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's daily "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Atrios and DailyKos are two of the big players on the scene right now in what is known as "the blogosphere", and my guess is that there are about a dozen sites that probably draw an overwhelming majority of readers. Five years ago, it was wide open, now it seems to have become more centralized. It's much more difficult for a blogger starting today to get any kind of traction unless they can get the attention of one of the bigger blogs, and God forbid anyone should get on their bad side, or be accused of "blog-whoring".

So my question is, where do we go from here? We have huge numbers of people gathering at these sites, but except for a few excellent examples of fundraising and otherwise helping candidates, it all seems to be one big circle jerk. There are too many cliques and too many people more concerned with their own pet issues or egos to see any kind of a big picture. If we want to be the kind of political force many of us would like us to become, then we can't continue doing what we're doing.

And so we stand at a crossroads, and I don't know where we're going. Five years ago, I don't think anyone even used the word "blogosphere". Will it even exist five years from now? We have a tremendous tool at our disposal, and I get the impression that we've only scratched the surface of its potential: not just in terms of making a quick buck, but in bringing the world together by showing the things we all have in common as humans, not just Americans or Germans or Iraqis. Maybe it's time we started acting towards that.

It's What You Do With It That Matters

Special Commentary! Click Here To Listen!

(A transcript of today's daily "Cup O' Joe Report" blogcast)

Humans are social animals, and regardless of what kind of society we have there will always be people who want to rise to the top of it. This isn't altogether a bad thing. I mean, we criticize politicians for being ambitious, but isn't ambition a kind of pre-requisite for the job? The person who wants it most isn't necessarily the worst person for the job. All our Presidents, I imagine, wanted to get there, and we've had both good and bad.

As I see it, it all depends on what you want to do with the power once you get it. Certainly Franklin Roosevelt and the New Dealers knew what they wanted the power for: they saw what happened when capitalism ran unchecked, and they wanted to set up a political system to regulate it. And they proved that when government is put in the hands of people who believe in it, it can do great things. While the New Deal was far from perfect, it did make life better for millions of Americans.

And now we have the Republicans, who are as powerful a political machine as we've ever had in this country. But unlike the New Dealers, the Republicans hate the very idea of government, and they obviously don't have the best interests of the country at heart, or else they wouldn't try so hard to keep everything they do secret.

I wouldn't have a problem with Republicans if they at least knew what to do with power once they had it, but they don't seem to have any goals other than wanting more money and more power, and I wonder how much is enough and what they'll do with it if they ever get as much as they want. Frankly, I hope we never find out.

The New Look Is UP!

In accordance with prophecy, and in order to take advantage of Blogger's newer features, I have redesigned the site. I believe it will now look much better for all of you at 800 x 600 as well as all other resolutions.

I still have a few bugs to work out, though: first of all, I'd like to create a right sidebar for the donation graphic and for the Google ads. This will give a decent margin on the right and won't interfere with the posts like the current setup does. Other than that, I think it looks pretty spiffy.

Anyone who cares to help out with the sidebar, please feel free to email me, but if you'd like to comment on the new look, please do so.