Friday, December 16, 2005

The Capitalisttemple


Big companies and advertisers are not overlooking the profitability of the religious youth market. Bill Graening, director of the Alive Festival, said that with nearly 25 big festivals a year, there were probably 2 million to 3 million kids in attendance, and the numbers are growing.

Graening said he and several other festival directors recently talked about working together to market the events, and Graening said he'd been contacted by several large companies interested in sponsoring the Alive Festival.

"Companies are seeing the size of the youth evangelical market growing, with growing disposable income, growing education," Schofield-Clark said. "They're seeing the evangelical Christian market as a viable market."


From: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Beliefs/story?id=1403056 on December 15th, 2005, by Jonann Brady

I saw a sign about a CHRISTmas Sale this AM..... do you reckon that Jesus would empty the capitalisttemple coffers of our modern businesses? Christianity, as it is practiced in amerika, dupes people into not being responsible for themselves, each other, or the planet. And, as the snip from the article above states, young Christians are merely an untapped market in the capitalisttemple. I'll tell you anything to make a dollar, because that's my bottom line! Sure! Jesus loves you! And! He loves you even more for every ticket you buy!

Just pondering *ahem* aloud, like I sometimes do..... Christimas as we know it is a commercial entity, born in the 1920's. And even an amateur theologian, like myself, knows damn well that Jesus would have been born around June. So, when our legislators work hard to establish exactly what Christmas means, I wonder what the true objective is? Certainly, it won't be a logical decision based on our actual his-stories. It will only be the cement that holds the capitalisttemple together. Praise Jesus. Now give me a fuckin' dollar.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Do something nice with your money.....

So, I found this story about a little kid from Haiti named Marlie Casseus this morning. She's got some serious health issues going on.... very disfigured because of her disease, and it's imapacting her ability to even eat and breathe. Interesting thing is, the article does not mention how in the hell you are supposed to try and help her out, if one is so inclined.

Well, after a little bit of research, I found the International Kids Fund. They are taking donations on her behalf, as well as other kids around the planet in serious need. Surgeons are donating their time and resources for Marlie. If you are interested in learning how you can help, click here.

She's in one hell of a mess..... that's why I thought I would step offa my soapbox today. I can do better than just bitch about the state of society, culture, and pollytix in amerika.

-AWD

Monday, December 12, 2005

*SIGH*

In September 2002, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recommended gubernatorial clemency for Williams, who is currently awaiting the final appellate decision.....

He will be dead in a few hours..... Yeah, I know. He killed some people. And he founded one of the worst gangs, ever. But he has worked to teach others a different way so that they will not end up on his path, and that is courageous. His potential will be extinguished by the state at 12.01 tonight.

Whatta shame...... Fuck you Schwarzenegger.

Monday, December 05, 2005

me, the universe, SUVs and crosswalks collide

It happenend to me again this morning. Someone tried to run over me in a crosswalk with an SUV. And then he gets mad about his poor little car getting punched by a pissed off muthafucka like me. And then he cusses me out. And then I cuss him out and we both have a really bad start to our fucking day.

To me, it seems logical that people driving cars should be careful around pedestrians. After all, we are not the ones in protective metal cages. And it seems that it would be logical to let a pedestrian cross in front of you, after you have stopped at the stop sign, to let them cross safely.

Hey, you know what? That shit isn't only fucking logical, it's the god damn mutha fuckin' law..... So tell me, why don't 'news' programs do civic-minded things and remind the cagedrivers about pedestrian law..... that pedestrians have the right of way?

Ah, but I'm just a crunchy old angrywoofdog. The assfuckholes driving their SUfuckingVs are more important than me in the grand scheme of Amerikan society. They must drive and breed and watch football games. They are using up the earth's resources faster than George W. Bu$h can say "Daddy, I need some money."

Fuck them. I am important and I will keep on defending my space inside of crosswalks, and I vow keep on trying to punch the windows out of their precious cars as they try to kill me. If I do in fact, die trying to walk across a street, maybe the assFuckHoles will learn to be a bit more fucking considerate with their cages.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

"When any law enforcement officer tells you to do something or not to do something, you do exactly what you're told," Rolon said. "If you do something different, you're in violation. ... I'm not one of your kids. I'm not one of your homies. I'm not one of your friends. I am not afraid of any one of you or all of you put together. And if you want to play with me I will play back."

"And law enforcement officers always win."

This is a statement from PigOfficer Roberto Rolon. See this article for more information.

Just as I've always suspected, those that supposedly enforce laws are just frustrated bullies. You's a big bad mothafucker to put handcuffs on a fucking 13 year old.

We all need to cultivate a healthy level of discontent for shit like this. Amerika is so close to turning into a fascist state. Who knows how much shit like this happens all over the country? This incident cannot be solitary.

Monday, November 14, 2005

NerdyFun, Beowulf Style.....

The Tao of Cluster Computing

In a little known book of ancient wisdom appears the following Koan:

The Devil finds work
For idle systems
Nature abhors a NoOp

The sages have argued about the meaning of this for centicycles, some contending that idle systems are easily turned to evil tasks, others arguing that whoever uses an idle system must be possessed of the Devil and should be smote with a sucker rod until purified.

I myself interpret "Devil" to be an obvious mistranslation of the word "Daemon". It is for this reason, my son, that I wish to place a simple daemon on your system so that Nature is satisfied, for it is clear that a NoOp is merely a Void waiting to be filled...

This is the true Tao.

-rgb

Dick Fuckin' Ass Cheney


These fuckers have been living high on the hog for too many years. They need to be taken down like a french louie. Do you recognise the other cocknocker in the pic? I'll give you a hint- these are your Vietnam War architects..... Cheney and Rumsfeld. Don't it make you a little bit suspicious that these assfuckers have been humping the whiteyhouse for fucking decades, now?


So, this asshole is coming to my town tomorrow. Every cocknobbin' republican't is bending over backward to accomodate the motorcade and security and shit. The thing that pisses me off is that most people don't even want his dumb ass to visit and he's totally gonna be fuckin' up the day for a lot of people here on campus. Commuter students will be displaced (we already have parking problems!) and regular business cannot be conducted at certain places.


Why is Dick Fuckin' Ass Cheney so special? WTF has he done that merits all of this special accomdation for a 2 hour poop-pass to a university? He should be banned from our campus. The deceits, the cover-ups, the spin politics (that means lying), the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi's, not to mention our own military's (more dead poor people), the spending/deficit/recession/economic collapse that is coming..... for fuck's sake, I could go on and on about the bad things that this person has done.


At least his fuckin' daughter is a lesbian. Maybe I'll have sex with her one day, like spend the night with her at her parents house and come downstairs for coffee the next morning. Maybe TheCheney Mama will make me some pussy-shaped pancakes. I'll ask, at least.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Fair Use Notice- You've been warned, informed, whatever

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Thursday, November 03, 2005

Some words about the catholic Alito.....

Donate Now: http://www.pfaw.org/go/donate
_______________________________________________________________

Alito to Replace O'Connor?
The fight over the future of the Supreme Court that we have
been fearing since President Bush took office has finally
arrived -- but under extraordinary circumstances. Allowing the
Right to veto his nomination of Harriet Miers, President Bush
has now nominated Judge Samuel Alito of the US Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit.

If confirmed, said one commentator, "There will be no one to
the right of Sam Alito on this Court."

Alito was the only Third Circuit judge who voted to uphold a
requirement that a woman notify her husband before seeking an
abortion. Operation Rescue responded to his nomination by
proclaiming "Roe's days are numbered. we are now on the
fast-track to derailing Roe v. Wade as the law of the land."

Alito has argued that Congress does not have the power to
regulate the sale of machine guns at gun shows.

He tried to uphold the strip search of a mother and her ten
year-old daughter, even though the warrant authorizing a
search did not name either of them.

Alito rejected claims by an African American defendant who
had been convicted of felony murder by an all-white jury from
which black jurors had been impermissibly struck because of
their race.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid quickly signaled his
disappointment with the President's decision to appoint
someone so enthusiastically supported by "those who want to
pack the Court with judicial activists." Patrick Leahy, ranking
member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called Bush's choice
a "needlessly provocative nomination.reward[ing] one faction of
his party at the risk of dividing the country."

Take action & see what the Right Wing is saying:
People for the American Way

AWD sez:

This country is going down the shitter faster than anyone imagined back in 2000 when bu$h stole the election. True science is hurting and will take a lifetime to recover. Civil Rights are only for the rich white people. Justice exists only for corporations. What a sad society we are.

If this keeps up, I'm gonna go to Red Mountain and never come back.....

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

The mpaa sucks dog dicks yet again!

MILWAUKEE - A 67-year-old man who says he doesn't even like watching movies has been sued by the film industry for copyright infringement after a grandson of his downloaded four movies on their home computer.

The Motion Picture Association of America filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Fred Lawrence of Racine, seeking as much as $600,000 in damages for downloading four movies over the Internet file-sharing service iMesh.

The suit was filed after Lawrence refused a March offer to settle the matter by paying $4,000.

"First of all, like I say, I guess I'd have to plead being naive about the whole thing," he said.

"I personally didn't do it, and I wouldn't do it. But I don't think it was anything but an innocent mistake my grandson made."

Lawrence said his grandson, who was then 12, downloaded "The Incredibles," "I, Robot," "The Grudge," and "The Forgotten" in December, without knowing it was illegal to do so.

The Racine man said his grandson downloaded the movies out of curiosity, and deleted the computer files immediately. The family already owned three of the four titles on DVD, he said.

"I can see where they wouldn't want this to happen, but when you get up around $4,000 ... I don't have that kind of money," Lawrence said. "I never was and never will be a wealthy person."

Kori Bernards, vice president of corporate communications for MPAA, said the movie industry wants people to understand the consequences of Internet piracy. She said the problem is the movies that were downloaded were then available to thousands of other users on the iMesh network.

"Basically what you are doing when you use peer-to-peer software is you are offering someone else's product that they own to thousands of other people for free, and it's not fair," Bernards said.

Illegal downloading costs the movie industry an estimated $5.4 billion a year, she said.

Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com

AngryWoofDog sez:

The only thing that the AWD can surmise from this is that the MPAA is a whole lot of coke-sniffing, limozeen-riding fucknuggets that have nothing better to do than harass an old man that already owned the movies. The kid fucked up! They know that. He knows not to download their stupid shitty product anymore. What the fuck is fair about trying to make someone pay $4000 for movies that only cost $25....? And then trying to sue them for $600,000....? I swear, one day, my head is just going to fucking explode with all of the absurdity that is rife in this society.....

Thursday, October 27, 2005

a new context


life
sloppybloody
civil engineering nightmare

linear thinking hurts
peels skin off of face
rawred pain, every caress

who says the devil
is a man, not me man
non toccare en espaƱol

western western blues
evermore calling
ad astra with me now!

Friday, September 30, 2005

Amerikan Moral Hypocrisy


Some words that need to be said to help point out the hypocrisy inherent in amerikan society:


Rom 14:12-13 (NIV) So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling-block or obstacle in your brother's way.


People pick and choose what they want from their religious texts in order to force others around them to try and be the same..... what a muthafuckin' shame.....

Thursday, September 29, 2005

My New Pledge

Yeah, it's been awhile since I've posted anything. There's been some high stress events in my life of late, and things are finally starting to settle down. At any rate, I've had a stroke of inspriation and shall now show you my new work:


I renounce my allegiance to the flag
of the united states of amerika,
and to the republicans for which it now stands;
a nation divided with
no liberty, no justice for all.



fuck eisenhower and fuck the bu$h dynasty!

-AWD

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Army Whistleblower Draws Fire

This woman deserves unending accolades for sticking up for her beliefs and questioning, like many of us do, why in the fuckin' Hell Halliburton gets all of the bloody money in the federal treasury. If I can find out a way to contact her, I will post it soon. She's a good person that does not deserve the stupidpollitix that are going to try and ruin her soul.

Fuck corporate greed. Fuck pollitix. Fuck religion as a tool of control and ignorance. Fuck the federal reserve. (Hey! Newsflash! The federal reserve is run by fucking Banks! The US government has *nothing* to do with it!)

-AWD

By DEBORAH HASTINGS, AP National Writer Sun Aug 7,12:17 PM ET

WASHINGTON - In the world as Bunnatine Greenhouse sees it, people do the right thing. They stand up for the greater good and they speak up when things go wrong. She believes God has a purpose for each life and she prays every day for that purpose to be made evident. These days she is praying her heart out, because she is in a great deal of trouble.

Bunnatine "Bunny" Greenhouse is the Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting ("PARC" in the alphabet soup of military acronyms) in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Lest the title fool, she is responsible for awarding billions upon billions in taxpayers' money to private companies hired to resurrect war-torn Iraq and to feed, clothe, shelter and do the laundry of American troops stationed there.

She has rained a mighty storm upon herself for standing up, before members of Congress and live on C-SPAN to proclaim things are just not right in this staggeringly profitable business.

She has asked many questions: Why is Halliburton — a giant Texas firm that holds more than 50 percent of all rebuilding efforts in Iraq — getting billions in contracts without competitive bidding? Do the durations of those contracts make sense? Have there been violations of federal laws regulating how the government can spend its money?

Halliburton denies any wrongdoing. "These false allegations have been recycled in the media ad nauseam," the company said in response to a list of e-mailed questions from The Associated Press.

Now Bunny Greenhouse may lose her job — and her reputation, which she spent a lifetime building.

She is a black woman in a world of mostly white men; a 60-year-old workaholic who abides neither fools nor frauds. But she is out of her element in this fight, her former boss said.

"What Bunny is caught up in is politics of the highest damn order," said retired Gen. Joe Ballard, who hired Greenhouse and headed the Corps until 2000. "This is real hardball they're playing here. Bunny is a procurement officer, she's not a politician. She's not trained to do this."

___

Greenhouse has known for a long time that her days may be numbered. Her needling of contracts awarded to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) predated the war in Iraq, beginning with costs she said were spiraling "out of control" from a 2000 Bosnia contract to service U.S. troops. From 1995 to 2000, Halliburton's CEO was
Dick Cheney, who left to run for vice president. He maintains his former company has not received preferential treatment from the government.

Since then, she had questioned both the amounts and the reasons for giving KBR tremendous contracts in the buildup to invading Iraq. At first she was ignored, she said. Then she was cut out of the decision-making process.

Last October 6, she was summoned to the office of her boss. Major Gen. Robert Griffin, the Corps' deputy commander, was demoting her, he told her, taking away her Senior Executive Service status and sending her to midlevel management. Not unlike being cast out of the office of bank president into the cubicle of branch manager. Griffin declined to be interviewed by the AP.

Her performance was poor, said a letter he presented. This was a surprise. Her previous job evaluations had been exemplary, she said. The basic theme was that she was "difficult," and "nobody likes you," she said.

If she didn't want the new position, she could always retire with full benefits, the letter noted.

Over my dead body, said Greenhouse.

"I took an oath of office. I took those words that I was going to protect the interests of my government and my country. So help me God," she says. "And nobody. Has the right. To take away my privilege. To serve my government. Nobody."

She has hired lawyer Michael Kohn, who successfully represented Linda Tripp in her claim that the
Pentagon leaked personal information after she secretly taped Monica Lewinsky's confessions of a sexual affair with President Bill Clinton.

Two weeks after Greenhouse's trip to the woodshed, Kohn wrote an 11-page letter to the acting Secretary of the Army, requesting an independent investigation of "improper action that favored KBR's interests."

He also asked that his client be protected against retaliation under whistleblower statutes.

Then he reminded the Army secretary of Federal Acquisition Requirement 3.101: "Government business shall be conducted in a manner above reproach ... with complete impartiality and with preferential treatment for none."

The status of an independent investigation by the Defense Department is unclear. "As a matter of policy, we do not comment on open and ongoing investigations," said Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Rose-Ann Lynch.

Halliburton is also under federal investigation for alleged favoritism by the Bush administration.
FBI agents questioned Greenhouse for nine hours last November about that probe. In March, a former employee was indicted for taking bribes while working for KBR in Iraq.

Company spokeswoman Melissa Norcross said KBR has "delivered vital services for U.S. troops and the Iraqi people at a fair and reasonable cost, given the circumstances." Meanwhile, Greenhouse has been placed under a 3-month performance review ending in September.

___

When Gen. Ballard hired her in 1997 she was overqualified — three master's degrees and more than 20 years of contracting experience in private industry, the Army and the Pentagon.

"She is probably the most professional person I've ever met, " Ballard said. "And she plays it straight. That created problems for her after I left."

Ballard used her, he said, to help him revolutionize the Corps — by ending the old-boys practice of awarding contracts to a favored few, and by imposing private industry standards on a mammoth, 230-year-old government agency with 35,000 workers. He felt the Corps, which had overseen everything from building hydroelectric dams to the Soo Locks to the Manhattan Project, needed a hard boot into the new age of contracting.

"The Corps is a tough organization. And I'll tell you, it's not easy to be a woman in this organization, and a black one at that," said Ballard, who was the first black leader of the Corps.

He is not optimistic about her future.

"I think you can put a fork in it," he said. "Her career is done."

At Corps headquarters, few speak to her, she said, and her bosses write down what she says at departmental meetings.

Sometimes, as she walks down a hall, someone will mutter, "Go for it, Bunny," or "Give 'em hell," she said. "They pass by saying this while they're looking straight ahead," she recounted, and chuckled.

In a city where politics is everything, including blood sport, she refuses to play. Right down to her clothes.

Bunny Greenhouse does not subscribe to the Capitol chic of a dowdy
Janet Reno jacket and skirt or a boxy
Hillary Clinton suit with buttons the size of quarters. On a sweltering summer day, seated in her lawyer's Georgetown office, Greenhouse wears a vibrant pink-and-black shirt, tight-fitting trousers with creases that could cut butter, and a blazer with a shredded-fabric flower.

Her bag — overflowing with files, papers, pens, wallet, cell phone — rivals the weight of a bound copy of the federal budget. Underestimate her at your peril.

"I have never gone along to get along. And I'm willing to suffer the consequences," she said.

Her contracting staff was sharply reduced, she said, and her superiors have gone behind her back, most notably in issuing an emergency waiver — on a day she was out of the office — that allowed KBR to ignore requests from
Department of Defense auditors who issued a draft report in 2003 concluding KBR overcharged the government $61 million for fuel in Iraq.

"They knew I would never have signed it," she said.

The Army Corps of Engineers declined to comment on Greenhouse's complaints. "It's a personnel matter," said Corps spokeswoman Carol Sanders. "We're not going to go point-by-point with Ms. Greenhouse's accusations.

"They want me out," Greenhouse said.

___

In her job, Greenhouse is mandated by Congress to get the best quality at the cheapest price from the most qualified supplier. Over her objections, KBR was awarded three multibillion-dollar war-related contracts, two of them without competitive bidding.

Together, they are worth as much as $20 billion — the entire cost of the Manhattan Project, adjusted to today's dollars.

Greenhouse's most strenuous complaints were over the Restore Iraqi Oil contract, estimated at $7 billion, originally planned to handle oil field fires that might be started by
Saddam Hussein's troops. When that failed to happen, it morphed into an agreement to repair oil fields and import fuel for civilians and soldiers.

The contract was given to KBR in March 2003. In Greenhouse's view, that process violated federal regulations concerning fair and open bidding. Halliburton denies that.

A month before KBR got the contract — and three weeks before the U.S. invaded Iraq — she had demanded KBR officials be ejected from a Pentagon meeting attended by high-ranking officials from the Corps and the Defense Department. "They should not have been there," she said. "We were discussing the terms of the contract."

Later, she would tell Democratic members of Congress: "The abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have ever witnessed during the course of my professional career."

At the Corps, Greenhouse said she was told KBR was the only qualified firm.

With the country on the brink of war, she reluctantly signed the RIO contract. But next to her signature, she boldly wrote an objection to the only thing she felt she could challenge — the contract's length, five years. One year would have been more than fair, she said. After that, it should have been put out for bid among contractors with top security clearances.

"I caution that extending this sole source contract beyond a one-year period could convey an invalid perception that there is not strong intent for a limited competition," she penned in neat cursive.

In June, she was asked to testify before the Democratic Policy Committee — formed by Democrats who said their efforts to get the Republican-controlled Congress to investigate alleged war profiteering had been repeatedly denied.

She was joined by a former Halliburton employee who said KBR fed spoiled food to American troops and charged the government for thousands of meals it never served.

Halliburton would not specifically address the former employee's claims. Norcross said taking care of troops is "our priority."

"I thought she was very courageous to come forward and blow the whistle," Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record) of California said of Greenhouse. "The administration ran around her and ignored her. We owe her a debt of gratitude."

And if she is forced out?

"I would find that outrageous," Waxman replied. "They should be promoting her."

Greenhouse is a registered independent. Her husband, Aloyisus Greenhouse, is retired after a long Army career as a senior procurement officer. They have three grown children.

Bunny grew up in the segregated South, where her parents taught her and her siblings to be proud and hardworking. Her brother is Elvin Hayes, the Hall of Fame basketball player. She followed her husband's military postings, moving and moving and then moving again. In each place she found her own way, and her own job.

Her husband watches what is happening to her and tries to bite his lip.

"Bunny has a lot of faith. She really believes that someone will stand up and say, 'This is wrong.' But I don't think a person exists like that in the Department of Defense."

But in her world, Bunny Greenhouse's faith still beams.

"I simply believe that we have callings and purposes in this life. I walk through this life for a purpose. I wake up every day for a purpose. And every day I say, 'Here I am. Send me.' "

286 billion dollars toward shitty bridges in alaska

I'm thinking about proposing to the documentary filmmaker on this project.... Chewbacca-fuckin'-absurd doesn't even start to put this in perspective. Power, money. Those make the world go 'round. It's all an illusion.... the prestige, the royalty, whatever. We all crawled out of the same cosmic goo. -AWD

Posted on Mon, Aug. 08, 2005

STATE GETS MILLIONS VIA CONGRESSMAN

Politician paves way for roads in Alaska

By MATT STEARNS

The (Kansas City) Star’s Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON –– You probably never heard of Don Young. But Don Young is mighty thankful for your tax dollars. He just took hundreds of millions of them home to Alaska.

He’ll build two bridges derided by critics as “bridges to nowhere.” One will be named, by law, “Don Young’s Way.” Plus, the state ranked 47th in population will get miles and miles of new roads.

Oh, by the way, the law itself is named after Young’s wife, Lu.

So: Who is Don Young, and how does he get away with it?

Well, when it comes to highways, there are civil engineers and then there are political engineers.

Young is Alaska’s sole member of the U.S. House of Representatives. In office since 1973, he is described in The Almanac of American Politics as “a hot-tempered, salty-tongued true believer” whom one crosses at one’s own peril.

He also is the powerful chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which wrote the House version of the $286.5 billion federal transportation bill that Congress passed last week before recess.

In the nearly 2,000-page bill, Young, like virtually every other member of Congress, tucked away a bunch of money earmarked for specific home-state projects. Alaska wound up with $941 million in projects. Only three states had more.

Plus, Alaska will receive an average of $420 million per year in highway funds, ranking it first per capita among states in transportation spending, about $3,206 for every man, woman and moose in the state.

How does that compare? Missouri will get more, $862 million a year, but it comes out to about $750 per capita. And Kansas? $383 million and about $700 a head.

For every dollar Alaska pays in gasoline taxes, it will get $5.26 back in federal transportation spending, a better rate of return than any other state. By comparison, Missouri will get about 98 cents back on every dollar it pays in gas taxes, with 99 cents for Kansas.

Among the $941 million in Alaskan projects is funding for two bridges championed by Young. A two-mile-long bridge from Anchorage to a sparsely populated region across part of Cook Inlet, will get $229 million to begin construction. This bridge will be known as “Don Young’s Way.”

Young told the Anchorage Daily News that the state’s senior senator, Ted Stevens, is the one who put the naming language into the bill.

“I certainly wasn’t going to turn it down,” Young told the paper.

The bridge’s total cost is estimated at $400 million to $600 million, according to the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority. Critics contend it will cost twice as much.

Proponents said the bridge would spur development and growth for Anchorage, home to about half of Alaska’s population of about 650,000.

The toll authority plans to release projected usage information on the bridge in November.

“That’s going to be a sweet bridge that six people a day use,” scoffed one Washington lobbyist who did not want to be quoted by name because Young is hosting a fund-raiser in Alaska soon. (You don’t dog the chairman if you want to keep working with him.)

The second project, for $223 million, is for a bridge connecting Ketchikan, population 14,000, to an island that has the city’s airport. Currently, a ferry takes folks between Ketchikan and the Gravina Island airport, which offers seven flights a day on one airline.

“It’s probably the quickest airport commute in the universe,” said Keith Ashdown, spokesman for the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense. “The ferry takes four minutes.”

The bridge’s total cost is estimated at $315 million.

Again, proponents cite the potential for development as the impetus for the bridge project.

By contrast, Missouri’s two major bridge projects are designed to ease existing and projected congestion.

Sen. Kit Bond, who was responsible for much of the Senate’s version of the bill, secured $50 million for the initial work on a new Paseo Bridge in Kansas City. This is projected to serve 140,000 drivers daily within 25 years between downtown Kansas City and the Northland, at an estimated total cost of $245 million.

He also got $75 million for a Mississippi River bridge in St. Louis that the state transportation department estimates will serve 130,000 drivers a day by 2030.

One transportation industry analyst who didn’t want to be quoted by name for fear of antagonizing Young said that congestion relief and economic development can be legitimate reasons for earmarking projects.

“In Missouri, I think regardless of whether it’s earmarked or not, it’s pretty evident that the projections show it’s justified,” the expert said. “In Alaska, you’ve got a different situation entirely. … Have you ever been to Ketchikan? You can spit across it.”

Young, whose office declined to comment for this article, was not the only powerful player working for Alaska’s interests on the highway bill. Stevens also weighed in with plenty of earmarked projects.

But it’s Young, as chairman, whose fingerprints are all over the bill. Even its name.

The highway bill has in recent years been known by acronyms. The 1992 law was known as ISTEA. The 1998 law was TEA-21.

The new law’s name is the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users.

Known as SAFETEA-LU.

That LU was added at the insistence of Chairman Young.

Lu being the first name of Mrs. Don Young.

“It might be touching … but I can’t imagine any member of Congress’ wife would want their name attached to a $286 billion bill that spends money like this,” said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union.

There is good news: Even Americans who never go to Alaska will be able to see their tax dollars at work.

A documentary film will be made about Alaska’s improving transportation infrastructure.

There’s no director yet. No distributor either. But the funding is in place.

There’s $3 million earmarked for it in the highway bill.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Masculinity Challenged, Men Prefer War and SUVs

AWD says: Well, duh fuckin' duh.... every dick that I see driving an SUV has a bu$h sticker and a yellow ribbon on it (which are made in fucking China, BTW....) Read on, gentle reader. And don't miss the post below this one!

Men whose masculinity is challenged become more inclined to support war or buy an SUV, a new study finds.

Their attitudes against gays change, too.

Cornell University researcher Robb Willer used a survey to sample undergraduates. Participants were randomly assigned feedback that indicated their responses were either masculine of feminine.

The women had no discernable reaction to either type of feedback in a follow-up survey.

But the guys' reactions were "strongly affected," Willer said today.

"I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle," said Willer said. "There were no increases [in desire] for other types of cars."

Those who had their masculinity threatened also said they felt more ashamed, guilty, upset and hostile than those whose masculinity was confirmed, he said.

By LiveScience Staff

posted: 02 August 2005
03:58 pm ET

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Sudan: 16-year-old Girl to be Flogged for 'Crime' of Adultery

The AWD posts an international appeal for help:

Amnesty International is calling for the sentence of 100 lashes, passed on a 16-year-old school girl in the Sudanese capital Khartoum for the 'crime' of adultery, to be commuted immediately.

Following the postponement of the punishment from 20 December to 23 January due to the girl's poor health, Amnesty International is also asking people all over the world to write to the Sudanese authorities asking them to stop the punishment going ahead.

Intisar Bakri Abdulgader gave birth to a child in September after becoming pregnant outside marriage. She was convicted of adultery and sentenced by a local court in the Khartoum suburb of Kalakla in July when she was seven months pregnant. The sentence was upheld by the appeal court in August. The alleged father of the child has reportedly not been charged but will have a blood test to establish paternity.

Intisar is caring for her four-month-old son, Dori. She is said to be very frightened at the prospect of the punishment and is reportedly eating and sleeping very little.

Under article 146 of Sudan's Penal Code, adultery is punishable by execution by stoning if the offender is married, or by one hundred lashes if the offender is not married. Adultery is defined as sexual intercourse with a man without being lawfully bound to him. Although the penal codes are based on an interpretation of Islamic law everyone in the north of Sudan is subject to them. Intisar's family are Christians from the south of Sudan who fled to the north to escape fighting near their home.

Amnesty International UK Media Director Lesley Warner said: "The Sudanese authorities must not carry out this vicious sentence on a young girl.

"It is a cruel punishment which completely contravenes basic international human rights law, to which Sudan is a party. The authorities should abolish all these cruel punishments now."

Scores of people were sentenced to amputation or flogging in Sudan last year. Flogging is frequently carried out immediately after sentencing leaving no chance for appeal, even when there are concerns about whether a fair trial has been held.

The Sudanese Penal Code, which is partly based on interpretation of Islamic legal doctrines, allows for penalties including flogging and amputations. Under Sudanese law, all who live in northern Sudan, whether Muslim or Christian (like Intisar Bakri Abdulgader), fall under the penalties of the Sudanese Penal Code's interpretation of religious law. The use of religious law is an issue of contention in the ongoing peace negotiations between the Sudanese government and rebels in the South.

Background

Amnesty International does not take a position on Islamic or any other religious law, but does consider such penalties to be cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments which are inconsistent with Sudan's obligations under international human rights law (Sudan is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). Moreover, the flogging of a child contravenes the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Sudan is also a party.

Take Action

Amnesty International is people all over the world to send appeals as soon as possible to the Sudanese ministers for home affairs, foreign affairs and justice asking for this sentence to be commuted and for the government to abolish cruel punishments.

Individuals can write urging the authorities to commute immediately the sentence of flogging passed on Intisar Bakri Abdulgader, and asking the government to abolish or suspend the punishment of flogging in Sudanese law to bring it into line with the international standards it has ratified.

Appeals can be sent to:

* Major General Abdul-Rahim Muhammed Hussein, Minister of Internal Affairs, Ministry of the Interior, PO Box 281, Khartoum, Sudan

* Mr Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin, Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Ministry of Justice, Khartoum, Sudan

* His Excellency Dr Hasan Abdin Mohammad Osman, Embassy of Sudan, 3 Cleveland Row, St James's, London SW1A 1DD

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

An ethical CEO??? I'm truly, truly shocked.....

Is being generous good for business?
Costco CEO profits as he offers top pay, benefits
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
New York Times

ISSAQUAH, WASH. - Jim Sinegal, the chief executive of Costco Wholesale, the nation's fifth-largest retailer, crows about Costco's private-label pinpoint cotton dress shirts.

"Look, these are just $12.99," he said while lifting a crisp blue button-down inside Costco's cavernous warehouse store here in the company's hometown. "At Nordstrom or Macy's, this is a $45, $50 shirt."

Combining high quality with stunningly low prices, the shirts appeal to upscale customers — and epitomize why some retail analysts say Sinegal just might be America's shrewdest merchant since Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart.

But not everyone is happy with Costco's business strategy. Some Wall Street analysts assert that Sinegal is overly generous not only to Costco's customers but to its workers as well.

Costco's average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Wal-Mart's Sam's Club. And Costco's health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco "it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder."

Sinegal begs to differ. He rejects Wall Street's assumption that to succeed in discount retailing, companies must pay poorly and skimp on benefits, or must ratchet up prices to meet Wall Street's profit demands.

Good wages and benefits are why Costco has extremely low rates of turnover and theft by employees, he said. And Costco's customers, who are more affluent than other warehouse store shoppers, stay loyal because they like the fact that low prices do not come at the workers' expense.

"This is not altruistic," he said. "This is good business."

He also dismisses calls to increase Costco's product markups. Sinegal, who has been in the retailing business for more than a half-century, said that heeding Wall Street's advice to raise some prices would bring Costco's downfall.

"When I started, Sears, Roebuck was the Costco of the country, but they allowed someone else to come in under them," he said. "We don't want to be one of the casualties."

At Costco, one of Sinegal's cardinal rules is that no branded item can be marked up by more than 14 percent, and no private-label item by more than 15 percent. In contrast, supermarkets generally mark up merchandise by 25 percent, and department stores by 50 percent or more.

"They could probably get more money for a lot of items they sell," said Ed Weller, a retailing analyst at ThinkEquity.

But Sinegal warned that if Costco increased markups to 16 percent or 18 percent, the company might slip down a dangerous slope and lose discipline in minimizing costs and prices.

Sinegal, whose father was a coal miner and steelworker, gave a simple explanation.

"On Wall Street, they're in the business of making money between now and next Thursday," he said. "I don't say that with any bitterness, but we can't take that view. We want to build a company that will still be here 50 and 60 years from now."

If shareholders mind Sinegal's philosophy, it is not obvious: Costco's stock price has risen more than 10 percent in the last 12 months, while Wal-Mart's has slipped 5 percent.

Emme Kozloff, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., faulted Sinegal as being too generous to employees, noting that when analysts complained that Costco's workers were paying just 4 percent toward their health costs, he raised that percentage only to 8 percent, when the retail average is 25 percent.

"He has been too benevolent," she said. "He's right that a happy employee is a productive long-term employee, but he could force employees to pick up a little more of the burden."

Sinegal says he listens to analysts' advice because it enforces a healthy discipline, but he has largely shunned pressure to be less generous to workers.

"When Jim talks to us about setting wages and benefits, he doesn't want us to be better than everyone else, he wants us to be demonstrably better," said John Matthews, Costco's senior vice president for human resources.

Costco was founded with a single store in Seattle in 1983; it now has 457 stores, including two in the Houston area. Despite Costco's impressive record, Sinegal's salary is just $350,000, although he also received a $200,000 bonus last year. That puts him at less than 10 percent of many other chief executives, though Costco ranks 29th in revenue among American companies.

"I've been very well rewarded," said Sinegal, 69, who is worth more than $150 million thanks to his Costco stock holdings. "I just think that if you're going to try to run an organization that's very cost-conscious, then you can't have those disparities. Having an individual who is making 100 or 200 or 300 times more than the average person working on the floor is wrong."

AngryWoofDog Howls:

This dude actually.... well.... he rocks. This is the only store that I shop when I'm in Chicago, and I'm damn proud that they are doing the right thing for the employees and not bowing down to corporate analyist pressure to "burden" the employees any more than they already are. Shit fire! Someone that gives a damn. This makes the AngryWoofDog's day :)

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Shell Oil, Canada, Alternative Energies, and You....

Just when we thought that Canada might be our salvation, we begin to learn that they are as much as the mercy of corporate interests as we are here in amerika.... stupid shit is happening all over the planet.

Yesterday, as I was driving home, it had just stopped raining. I looked up in the sky at the clouds and they were a very angry red. In fact, a reddish-purple pallor was cast upon everything in sight. Folks, this ain't normal. It's pollution. And it's killing you and it's killing me and it's killing everything else on the planet. We need to change our ways and very fast. But shit like the following story makes me lose hope....


NCC sorry for nixing Corn Cob Bob from Canada Day
Last updated Jul 5 2005 09:00 AM EDT
CBC News

CBC NEWS – The National Capital Commission has apologized for banning an alternative-fuel mascot from its Canada Day celebrations at the request of a major oil company.

Corn Cob Bob is the front man for the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, a not-for-profit group that promotes clean energy.

The association had secured an information booth at Major's Hill Park through the NCC, which had even offered a 50-per-cent discount on the usual fees.

But last Wednesday, the commission called to cancel the arrangement after pressure from Shell Canada, a key sponsor for the Canada Day celebrations in the capital.

Kory Teneycke, the executive director of Canadian Renewable Fuel Association, was surprised by the call.

"They said they were very sorry but they said one of their major sponsors had indicated there was a conflict between the message that we were promoting and their company's interests," he said.

Teneycke says the NCC shouldn't be in the business of caving into corporate pressures and curbing free speech.

NCC spokesperson Guy Laflamme says the decision to cancel Corn Cob Bob was not approved by senior management.

"We will make sure this doesn't happen in the future. But once again, we are committed to promoting alternative sources of energy," said Laflamme.

The NCC called Monday afternoon to apologize to the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, and invited the group to attend next year's Canada Day celebrations.

A Shell spokesperson said the company's arrangement with organizers meant it had exclusive rights when it came to fuel products.

Shell produces more than three per cent of the world's oil and gas. On its website's Environment and Society page, the company states, "We have an essential role in finding new ways to meet present and future energy needs in environmentally and socially responsible ways."

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Souter Will Taste His Own Medicine!

Press Release

For Release Monday, June 27 to New Hampshire media
For Release Tuesday, June 28 to all other media

Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land.

Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter's home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called "The Lost Liberty Hotel" will feature the "Just Desserts CafƩ" and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."

Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.

"This is not a prank" said Clements, "The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development."

Clements' plan is to raise investment capital from wealthy pro-liberty investors and draw up architectural plans. These plans would then be used to raise investment capital for the project. Clements hopes that regular customers of the hotel might include supporters of the Institute For Justice and participants in the Free State Project among others.

# # #

Logan Darrow Clements
Freestar Media, LLC

Phone 310-593-4843
logan@freestarmedia.com
http://www.freestarmedia.com
AngryWoofDog Rants:

Getting what they give.... I'm so happy to see that this is happening! Keep up the good works, folks!

Monday, June 27, 2005

The $upreme Court rules in favor of MGM

Monday, June 27, 2005
Grokster, StreamCast Lose

Posted by Lyle Denniston at 10:31 AM

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that developers of software violate federal copyright law when they provide computer users with the means to share music and movie files downloaded from the Internet, at least when the software companies take "affirmative steps to foster infringement."

In a decision announced by Justice David H. Souter, the Court said: "We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties" -- that is, computer users using free downloading software.

A sweeping victory for music recording companies and movie studios, the ruling set the stage for a major legal assault on rampant file-sharing of copyrighted works by attacking the software designers -- a much more promising legal avenue than suing infringing users directly.

The decision came in the case of MGM Studios v. Grokster, et al., 04-480.

AngryWoofDog Rants:

The logic that is being applied in this case is so absurd, that mine head will assplode if I think about it too much. Chewbacca!

I can surmise my argument very succinctly here: if file sharing software is responsible for the illegal downloading of music and movies, then web browsing software is repsonsible for the proliferation of child pornography.

'Nuff said, motherfuckers. Get Nraged.

-AngryWoofDog

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Sometimes you run across a tidbit that just is so absurd, there's not much you can rant about it. I'm just gonna crawl into a hole and cry.... letting the knowledgesewage slowly wash over me. Amerika's governmentrape is completely out of control. Please, read on:

Note: (June 8): Since we issued this press release, sources associated with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee have asserted that the provision in the Senate energy bill providing loan guarantees for a coal gasification project in a western state was not specifically written to benefit DKRW Energy's Medicine Bow project, but is instead aimed at aiding another project that has not yet been publicly announced. This as-yet secret project is said to involve three companies: Xcel Energy, Pacificorp and Tri-State Generation & Transmission. Because plans for this project (assuming they exist) are still under wraps, it is impossible to verify whether the Senate Bill's language is in fact intended to support it.

Our press release was based on our research into publicly announced projects. Based on that research, DKRW Energy's Medicine Bow project was the only gasification plant we could identify that met the description in the Senate Bill. In the absence of other projects that satisfied the bill's criteria, it was a logical inference that the DKRW project was the intended beneficiary of the bill. Assuming the correctness of the assertions that the bill is not in fact intended to benefit DKRW, DKRW's Medicine Bow project still qualifies for the loan guarantee, particularly since no details about the Xcel-Pacificorp-Tri-State project are available to the public.
June 6, 2005

Former Enron Executives Slated to Receive Taxpayer Handouts
for New Project

Senate Energy Bill Contains Provision for Hundreds of Millions of Dollars
in Loan Guarantees for Power Project

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Buried in the 700-plus page energy bill currently under debate in the U.S. Senate is a provision that provides hundreds of millions of dollars worth of federal loan guarantees for a power project apparently to be built by four former Enron executives. One of the former executives is Thomas White, former head of Enron’s retail and energy trading in California during the energy crisis who later served as President Bush’s Secretary of the Army.

Title XIV, Section 1403(c)(1)(B) of the Senate energy bill provides federal loan guarantees for “a project to produce energy from coal … mined in the western United States using appropriate advanced integrated gasification combined cycle technology that minimizes and offers the potential to sequester carbon dioxide emissions and … shall be located in a western State at an altitude greater than 4,000 feet.”

Public Citizen’s investigation to find out who this loan would benefit narrowed the answer to just one company: Houston-based DKRW Energy. This company, named after the four Enron executives that founded it – Jon C. Doyle, Robert C. Kelly, H. David Ramm and White – formed a subsidiary, Medicine Bow Fuel & Power, to develop a $2.8 billion coal gasification project in Medicine Bow, Wyo. The DKRW facility meets all the criteria required in the legislation: The coal will be supplied from Arch Coal mines neighboring the power facility; it will stuff carbon dioxide emissions into oil wells; and the facility will be located in a western state (Wyoming) at an altitude above 4,000 feet.

“Congress should not be in the business of slipping taxpayer subsidies into large bills to benefit individual corporations, especially executives from a company that perpetrated one of the greatest corporate frauds in American history,” said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook.

The federal loan guarantee makes taxpayers responsible for repaying the loan if the company defaults, or if the project ends up not being economically feasible after its construction. The provision states that if an energy company receiving such a loan guarantee defaults on that loan, the bank to which the loan is owed “shall have the right to demand payment of the unpaid [loan] amount from the Secretary” of Energy. Therefore, taxpayers hold all the risk while energy companies reap all the rewards.

“Has Congress learned nothing from the Enron bankruptcy and the fallout from the company’s fraudulent behavior?” said Tyson Slocum, research director for the energy program. “The fact that the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is willing to back these former Enron executives with taxpayers’ money is truly unsettling.”

The committee has approved the bill, and it is scheduled for Senate action as early as this week. Among the members of the energy committee is Republican Craig Thomas of Wyoming. The provision is not in the House energy bill, which has been approved by the House.

Public Citizen speculated that these four former Enron executives are seeking taxpayer handouts because they have had a difficult time attracting the necessary private capital without the loan guarantee. White served as Secretary of the Army from May 2001 to March 2003. Prior to that, he served as vice chairman of one of Enron’s largest divisions, Enron Energy Services (EES).

Under White’s tenure, EES played a major role in the California energy crisis. In 1998, the year he became its vice chairman, EES was America’s 61st largest energy trader. When he left, his division was the 28th largest energy trading firm in the country. Until March 2001, the trading operations of EES were separate from the rest of Enron’s Wholesale Energy unit – meaning White was responsible for a huge trading operation that played a significant role in California’s energy crisis.

Also, under White’s direction, EES severed at least two large retail contracts in California in January/February 2001 during the height of the energy crisis, which Enron helped create. Based on the evidence on hand, it appears that EES took the power that had been obligated to serve these retail consumers and sold it in the wholesale market, where EES could fetch higher prices than it could by continuing to sell power at lower, fixed rates to retail customers. This significant wholesale trading operation, combined with White’s decision to break retail contracts in California, made the division a major player in California’s deregulated wholesale market.

The energy bill also contains other giveaways to energy corporations. Title XIV, Section 1403(c)(1)(C), provides $800 million in federal loan guarantees to a Minnesota company, Excelsior Energy, whose executives have ties to a company that filed for bankruptcy after amassing $9.2 billion in debt and paid $25 million to settle allegations of energy market manipulation.

Title XIV, Section 1403(c)(1)(D), provides loan guarantees to Lexington, Ky.-based EnviRes to build a coal gasification facility in East St. Louis, Ill. The total cost of the project is $254.2 million. EnviRes is a joint venture of three companies, including Triad Research, which in turn is operated by Robert Addington of Addington Energy (AEI Resources), one of the nation’s largest coal conglomerates. Among the members of energy committee is Republican Jim Bunning of Kentucky.

“Since the energy bill was first drafted, it has been larded with pork for corporate America,” said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program.” If this project can’t stand on its own, it shouldn’t get a taxpayer bailout. In this case, taxpayers take all the risk but the former Enron executives will reap all the rewards.”

If you would like to become even more disgusted, read this:

bu$h's Clean Coal Initiative Attracts "Second Wave" of Technologies

Monday, June 06, 2005

random thots

much sickness and many travels this month. church was excellent! lots of pretty naked girls and orgies.... i love worshipping dirt with 400 others.

absurdity is the word of the day. here are some things i associate with it:

the bu$h family
neo cons in amerika
monogomany
the christian god
intelligent design
fatwahs and jihads
economic theories as paths to enlightenment
chinese slave labour and real amerikans buying it all
postmodern identity crises
commodifying air, land, and water
republikans
the states of texass and south k-k-karolina
chicken fuckers
private party sales tax
the nouveau hyper-rich
fshcishm
amerika's other assorted ruling elite

that's a short list. i'm gonna eat some lunch.

ciao,

-angrywoofdog

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

U.S. living beyond means, Dodge warns

Just a little nuglet of wizdom that i came across this AM.....

Last Updated Mon, 30 May 2005 13:11:23 EDT
CBC News

OTTAWA - Bank of Canada governor David Dodge offered a bankerly rebuke to the United States on Monday for its borrow-and-spendthrift ways, which he suggested are a threat to world economic stability.

Less directly, he chided nations such as China for rigging their currencies to boost exports while building up larger and larger foreign-exchange reserves, creating a lopsided world in which Asian savings finance U.S. spending.
David Dodge: 'A country's external indebtedness cannot keep growing indefinitely' (CP file photo)

In the text of a speech to be given at a Montreal conference, the central bank chief warned of "large, global economic imbalances that have become the subject of increasing concern" to policy-makers.

"I am referring, of course, to the persistent and growing current account deficit in the United States that is mirrored by large current account surpluses elsewhere, especially in Asia."

Trade imbalance problems highlighted

His comments echo those of many economists who have watched the United States evolve from the world's greatest creditor nation to the greatest debtor as Americans saved less, consumed more and imported more. China, meanwhile, took over much of the world's consumer-goods manufacturing and used its export earnings to soak up vast amounts of U.S. debt.

Supporters of the Bush administration have tended to argue that the three U.S. deficits — in international trade, current account and federal budget — do not matter to a superpower that prints the world's most widely used money.

Dodge said the imbalances won't go on forever.

"At some point, they will have to be resolved. Why? For one thing, a country's external indebtedness cannot keep growing indefinitely as a share of its GDP. Eventually, investors will begin to balk at increasing their exposure to that country, even if it is a reserve-currency country, such as the United States.

"For another thing, the buildup of foreign exchange reserves by Asian countries will, eventually, feed into domestic monetary expansion and lead to higher inflation. These imbalances will ultimately be resolved, either in an orderly, or in an abrupt, disorderly way."

A basic problem is the mismatch in national rates of saving, Dodge said.

"Specifically, over the past decade or so, we have seen many countries outside the United States increase their saving by a very large amount, while at the same time, the United States has reduced its saving and has become increasingly reliant on foreign borrowing."

He said Asian countries built up foreign-exchange reserves partly as a cushion against a recurrence of the region's 1997-98 economic crisis.

"But more importantly, policies to encourage export-led growth in many Asian economies have exacerbated the situation. Some countries have actively tried to prevent an appreciation of their currencies by intervening in the foreign exchange market. In doing so, not only are they increasing the imbalances, they are also seen by some to be securing an unfair trade advantage and shifting the burden of global adjustment onto others."

Reports from China last week said there was no sign Beijing would speed up plans to revalue the country's currency, which is widely considered artificially cheap. Such a move would make Chinese goods less competitive in international markets and shrink the value of China's huge official holdings of U.S. government securities.

On Monday, Beijing reacted sharply to U.S. and European moves to restrict imports of Chinese clothing and textiles, which have flooded into western markets since a quota system expired in January. China cancelled plans to increase export taxes on many garments as a voluntary move to handicap its own producers, the Associated Press reported.


Don't hate to say it: told you so. All you dumbass republikans refused to admit that the asians were shoring up our economy. Anybody ready for a civil war?

xoxoxo

-angrywoofdog

Monday, May 09, 2005

Letter to Pre$ident Bu$h

This is a transcript/copy of the letter that has been sent to your president. Glad that something has been done! Read on:

-angrywoofdog

May 5, 2005

The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States of America The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We write because of troubling revelations in the Sunday London Times apparently confirming that the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action. While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your Administration. However, when this story was divulged last weekend, Prime Minister Blair's representative claimed the document contained "nothing new." If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own Administration.

The Sunday Times obtained a leaked document with the minutes of a secret meeting from highly placed sources inside the British Government. Among other things, the document revealed:

* Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a July 2002 meeting, at which he discussed military options, having already committed himself to supporting President Bush's plans for invading Iraq.

* British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged that the case for war was "thin" as "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran."

* A separate secret briefing for the meeting said that Britain and America had to "create" conditions to justify a war.

* A British official "reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

As a result of this recent disclosure, we would like to know the following:

1) Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?

2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?

3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?

4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?

5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?

We have of course known for some time that subsequent to the invasion there have been a variety of varying reasons proffered to justify the invasion, particularly since the time it became evident that weapons of mass destruction would not be found. This leaked document - essentially acknowledged by the Blair government - is the first confirmation that the rationales were shifting well before the invasion as well.

Given the importance of this matter, we would ask that you respond to this inquiry as promptly as possible. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Members who have already signed letter:
Neil Abercrombie
Brian Baird
Tammy Baldwin
Xavier Becerra
Shelley Berkley
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Sanford Bishop
Earl Blumenauer
Corrine Brown
Sherrod Brown
G.K. Butterfield
Emanuel Cleaver
James Clyburn
John Conyers
Jim Cooper
Elijah Cummings
Danny Davis
Peter DeFazio
Diana DeGette
Bill Delahunt
Rosa DeLauro
Lloyd Doggett
Sam Farr
Bob Filner
Harold Ford, Jr.
Barney Frank
Al Green
Raul Grijalva
Louis Gutierrez
Alcee Hastings
Maurice Hinchey
Rush Holt
Jay Inslee
Sheila Jackson Lee
Jessie Jackson Jr.
Marcy Kaptur
Patrick Kennedy
Dale Kildee
Carolyn Kilpatrick
Dennis Kucinich
William Lacy Clay
Barbara Lee
John Lewis
Zoe Lofgren
Donna M. Christensen
Carolyn Maloney
Ed Markey
Carolyn McCarthy
Jim McDermott
James McGovern
Cynthia McKinney
Martin Meehan
Kendrick Meek
Gregory Meeks
Michael Michaud
George Miller
Gwen S. Moore
James Moran
Jerrold Nadler
Grace Napolitano
James Oberstar
John Olver
Major Owens
Frank Pallone
Donald Payne
Charles Rangel
Bobby Rush
Bernie Sanders
Linda Sanchez
Jan Schakowsky
Jose Serrano
Ike Skelton
Louise Slaughter
Hilda Solis
Pete Stark
Ellen Tauscher
Bennie Thompson
Edolphus Towns
Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Chris Van Hollen
Nydia Velazquez
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Maxine Waters
Diane Watson
Melvin Watt
Robert Wexler
Lynn Woolsey
David Wu
Albert R. Wynn

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

South Carolina legislators kill domestic violence bill; instead, make cockfighting a felony

(Columbia) April 20, 2005 - The State House took up two pieces of legislation this week aimed at protecting two different groups. Up for debate was cracking down on gamecock fighting and protecting victims of domestic violence.

A bill protecting cocks passed through the House Judiciary Committee. Rep. John Graham Altman was in favor of the gamecock bill, "I was all for that. Cockfighting reminds me of the Roman circus, coliseum."

A bill advocates say would protect victims against batterers was tabled, killing it for the year. Rep. Altman is on the committee that looked at the domestic violence bill, "I think this bill is probably drafted out of an abundance of ignorance."

Both cockfighting and domestic violence are currently misdemeanor crimes, punishable by 30 days in jail. If the bill passes, cockfighting will become a felony, punishable by five years in jail. Domestic violence crimes will remain a misdemeanor.

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter says of the two bills, "What we have said by the actions of the Judiciary Committee is we aren't going to create a felony if you beat your wife, partner, husband. But now, if you've got some cockfighting going on, whoa! Wait a minute."

Rep. Altman responds to the comparison, "People who compare the two are not very smart, and if you don't understand the difference between trying to ban the savage practice of watching chickens trying to kill each other and protecting people rights in CDV statutes, I'll never be able to explain it to you in a 100 years ma'am."

Rep. Cobb-Hunter says, "The reality is the law says domestic violence regardless, first, second or third offense is a misdemeanor, and what they passed yesterday says cockfighting is a felony."

Rep. Altman speaks about domestic violence, "There ought not to be a second offense. The woman ought to not be around the man. I mean you women want it one way and not another. Women want to punish the men, and I do not understand why women continue to go back around men who abuse them. And I've asked women that and they all tell me the same answer, John Graham you don't understand. And I say you're right, I don't understand."

Altman also states, "It's not the woman's fault, it's not blaming the victim, but tell me what self-respecting person is going back around some one who beats them"

Rep. Cobb-Hunter explains her bill, "The question that needs to be asked is this. Should a woman because she decides to go back for whatever the reason to return to an abusive relationship, does that mean it's ok to beat her, to kill her, for her to lose her life, for her children to witness the violence they witness?"

Rep. Altman, "I know you are after a story. And it's kind of a nice story, that we've tabled a CDV bill. Because then you can talk about the insensitive man, the insensitive legislator, but it's not the case. But I don't know why a woman, there would ever be a second offense."
-Kara Gormley, WIS10

AngryWoofDog writes:

Rep. Altman obviously has some things to learn about dependency, depression, and the economic status of women with children who do not work outside the home. Maybe we could get his wife to beat him up..? Knock his dumbassbitch head around a couple of times in a serious schooling lesson.

He says that he doesn't understand why there would be a second offense in a domestic violence situation. Maybe after his wife knocks him around for while, she will promise never to do it again and she'll be so sorry that she will even fucking cry and beg him to come back into her life because she just can't live without the children. And since his wife makes all of the money, he actually needs her around so that he can have food, clothing and shelter.

Oh wait... silly me... why would he go back to her... just because she has all of the power over his life and the laws that MEN have written have made it easier for her to keep him in line, just like the fucking BIBLE says?

FUCK YOU ALTMAN!!! WHY DON'T YOU TRY TO LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT DOMESTIC FUCKING VIOLENCE???

Friday, April 08, 2005

Thinking about the future

Hello all you folks in cyberspace. Today I will rant and roll about the current situation of life as we know it, and how it is starting to fall apart.

Do you realise that the toothbrushes you are using are a byproduct of oil? The creams that you put on your skin. The clothes that you are wearing. Think about everything that's manufactured- the machines that put those items together use oil. Guess what? We are running out of oil. Your life will be drastically different 15 years from now, when the suburbs are rotting.

Thank goddess, tho, really. The air will become so much cleaner, as will the rivers. Personally, I'm looking forward to the time when we have no more papermills that pollute streams with their poisons.

Monsanto. There's a company that you don't hear much about anymore. Makers of Agent Orange and DDT. Now think about how much those two products have fucked up the planet! Entire species and ecosystems have been eradicated, not to mention the soaring amounts of birth defects and death in our our species.

We are killing ourselves for the idea that money actually means something more than life itself. You drive your big SUV around and wear Nike shirts, blissfully unaware that the oil your machine consumes and the toxins it produces will give yourself and your children cancers of all kinds, and that the shirt you paid $75 for earned the maker of it 3¢.

Parallels can be drawn to many corporate institutions: the RIAA commodifies something that has been freely available and fun for thousands of years; in fact, they get it for free, then they package it up and sell it back to you, making money so that they can drive the SUV's and wear the Nike shirts. Oh boo fucking hoo.... recording 'artists' have to wait 2 months before they can get that backyard pool put in.

Don't you see that everything on this planet is inter-related? That every living ecosystem is in decline because we have become so blind for the past 150 or so years? There is no ultimate path of civilisation that we are moving toward. In fact, our blind greed is going to actually send us backward.

When there's no electricity, what do you think the internet will be like???

And usually, this is when I would say, 'Come on people, think about the repercussions of how we live today!' But the people that might be reading this blog aren't the ones in power, and they aren't the ones that I rally against. Those in power will never read this blog unless I say some stupid shit about radically killing off those in power, and even then, it will only be the goon squads coming to get me and quietly putting a bullet in my own head.

It's really fucking frustrating to be aware and alive right now. To know the basic necessities of life are bad for you.... air and water. And to think that corporate fucks want to commodify every single gluon and proton on this planet. (Did you know that certain companies OWN the genetic blueprints to orangutans and most other animals???)

Wake the fuck up and do *something*. Don't just write the dicks in congre$$. We've gotta get organised and get active; take it to the streets and take it back. It's your life and the entire planet's future that is at stake here.

And no one is more serious about it than me.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

The Hypocritical Tom Delay

Report: DeLay Agreed With Withholding Special Treatment for Injured Father
The Associated Press
Published: Mar 27, 2005

LOS ANGELES (AP) - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who has helped lead a congressional effort to keep Terri Schiavo alive, joined members of his own family nearly 17 years ago in allowing doctors not to take extraordinary measures to extend his father's life, a newspaper reported Sunday.

DeLay had just been re-elected to his third term in Congress in 1988 when his father, Charles DeLay, was severely injured in an accident. As the elder DeLay's vital organs began failing, the family chose not to connect him to a dialysis machine or take other measures to prolong his life, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday, citing court documents, medical records and interviews with family members.

"There was no point to even really talking about it," Maxine DeLay, the congressman's 81-year-old mother, told the Times. "Tom knew, we all knew, his father wouldn't have wanted to live that way."

"Tom went along" with the family's decision, she said.

She called comparisons between her husband's case and that of Schiavo "interesting" but said she agrees with her son that Schiavo might have a chance of recovering if her feeding tube were reinserted.

DeLay helped push through Congress a special law allowing Terri Schiavo's parents to ask federal courts to order their brain-damaged daughter's feeding tube reinserted after state courts allowed it to be removed. However, after hearing their pleas, federal judges refused to intervene.

The Texas Republican also accused Schiavo's husband and the courts of "an act of barbarism" against Schiavo, who doctors say is in a persistent vegetative state.

The congressman declined to be interviewed about his father's case, but a press aide said it was "entirely different than Terri Schiavo's."

"The only thing keeping her alive is the food and water we all need to survive. His father was on a ventilator and other machines to sustain him," said DeLay spokesman Dan Allen.

Charles DeLay, 65, and his brother and their wives were trying out a tram the brothers had built to carry their families up and down a slope from their Texas home to the shore of a lake when the tram jumped the tracks on Nov. 17, 1988.

Charles DeLay was pitched headfirst into a tree. Hospital admission records showed he suffered multiple injuries, including a brain hemorrhage.

Doctors advised that he would "basically be a vegetable," said the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay, who suffered broken bones in the crash.

Like Schiavo, Charles DeLay had no living will, but he had reportedly expressed to others his wish not to be kept alive by artificial means.

He died on Dec. 14, 1988. He had not shown any signs of being conscious, except that his pulse rate would rise slightly when younger son Randall entered the room, Maxine DeLay said.

"There was no chance he was ever coming back," she said of her husband.

Now how's that for demockeracy? These are the people that are willing to legislate on YOUR behalf, each and every fuckin' one of ya.

Getting ready to turn on, tune in and drop out,

-AngryWoofDog

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Frist asked to atone for killing cats

I have no words for how horrible this is.... Bill, I always knew you were an asshole fuckwad, but this really takes the fucking cake. What an awful, awful human being you are. I hope large, large cats eat your torpid eviscera one day while you are 'hunting' in Africa.

By Dee Ann Divis
Science and Technology Editor
Published 12/31/2002 8:13 PM

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is being asked by an animal advocacy group to support legislation for better animal treatment to make up for fraudulently adopting cats from animal shelters then experimenting on and killing them while he was a medical student.

A Dec. 31 letter from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals asked Frist to make amends by pressing for reforms that would replace old-style tests where animals are subjected to painful and sometimes deadly procedures with newer, more humane approaches. They also requested that he help fund research to find non-animal alternatives.

Frist acknowledged in a 1989 book that he routinely killed cats while an ambitious medical student at Harvard Medical School in the 1970s. His office said it had no record on how many cats died. Frist disclosed that he went to animal shelters and pretended to adopt the cats, telling shelter personnel he intended to keep them as pets. Instead he used them to sharpen his surgical skills, killing them in the process.

The newly elected leader of the Senate Republicans revealed the practice in his book "Transplant: A Heart Surgeon's Account of the Life-and-Death Dramas of the New Medicine."

"It was a heinous and dishonest thing to do," Frist wrote, in a passage quoted by The Boston Globe. On Tuesday, Frist's press aide, Nick Smith, told United Press International that "Senator Frist denounces the activities that he did while he was in medical school -- as he has done before."

It is not clear if Frist's actions were illegal. Many states ban shelters from knowingly letting their animals be taken for such purposes.

Massachusetts put such a ban in place in 1983. Frist was a student in the Boston area from 1974 to 1978. A total of 14 states have passed such laws. Four states -- Iowa, Minnesota, Utah and Oklahoma -- still have laws that allow labs to demand the release of animals for experimental use.

But such regulations, called pound seizure laws, only govern the actions of the shelters.

"The pound seizure law probably would not apply there because the shelter did not intentionally sell the animal to him for this purpose," said Debora Bresch, a lawyer and a lobbyist for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

"They thought they were adopting the animal out to him," said Bresch. "What he did was fraudulent and probably was illegal."

"It would probably would be considered cruel back even then," added Stephen Musso, senior vice president and chief of operations of ASPCA.

Though Musso said he personally had not heard about the Frist incident, he told UPI, "We wouldn't want to see anybody taking an animal out of an animal shelter and doing anything with it -- first of all that would be harmful; second of all, different than the intentions that they gave to the people at that shelter or humane organization."

Attitudes toward animal experimentation have shifted, said Gary Patronek, director of the Tufts Center for Animals and Public Policy in North Grafton, Mass.

"The fact that laws have passed prohibiting the practice of pound seizure in 14 states is evidence of the fact that society's attitudes have changed," Patronek told UPI. "The laws reflect the attitudes. If there isn't a broad social consensus about something, then typically the laws don't change."

The demographics have changed also. By the end of 2000, a total of 34 percent of American households had at least one cat -- a sharp rise of 8 percent in only two years. The American Pet Products Manufacturers Association also said in their 2001-2002 National Pet Owner Survey that 39 percent of all U.S. households owned at least one dog in 2000, about the same percentage as in 1998.

Though Frist's practice has been known for 11 years, the matter appears to be gathering new attention since his election as Senate majority leader. E-mail with copies of news articles mentioning the incident are bouncing around the Internet, said Bresch.

One Frist supporter said the senator's opponents are fueling the interest in the issue.

"What is happening here is that people are doing profiles of the senator, and they are desperate to find something wrong with him and to come up with something bad in his past," he pointed out.

Whether Frist will come to the aid of animal legislative causes remains to be seen. His spokesman said they had not seen the PETA letter and therefore would not comment on it.

PETA, normally more combative and high-profile, took a somewhat restrained tone in its letter. There was no mistaking PETA's opinion, however, as the organization asked Frist to make an effort on the animals' behalf.

"There could be no better way of making some small amends to those animals whose trust you betrayed when you took them from shelters," the letter said.

(With reporting by Nicholas M. Horrock in Washington)
Copyright © 2001-2004 United Press International

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

US Military is funding a new weapon that delivers excruciating pain from 2 km.

By David Hambling
Republished from New Scientist

The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be used for torture.

“I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research,” says Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, UK. “Even if the use of temporary severe pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not believe it can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are unknown.”

The research came to light in documents unearthed by the Sunshine Project, an organisation based in Texas and in Hamburg, Germany, that exposes biological weapons research. The papers were released under the US’s Freedom of Information Act.

One document, a research contract between the Office of Naval Research and the University of Florida in Gainesville, US, is entitled “Sensory consequences of electromagnetic pulses emitted by laser induced plasmas”.

It concerns so-called Pulsed Energy Projectiles (PEPs), which fire a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid, like a person (New Scientist print edition, 12 October 2002). The weapon, destined for use in 2007, could literally knock rioters off their feet.

Pain trigger

According to a 2003 review of non-lethal weapons by the US Naval Studies Board, which advises the navy and marine corps, PEPs produced “pain and temporary paralysis” in tests on animals. This appears to be the result of an electromagnetic pulse produced by the expanding plasma which triggers impulses in nerve cells.

The new study, which runs until July and will be carried out with researchers at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, aims to optimise this effect. The idea is to work out how to generate a pulse which triggers pain neurons without damaging tissue.

The contract, heavily censored before release, asks researchers to look for “optimal pulse parameters to evoke peak nociceptor activation” – in other words, cause the maximum pain possible. Studies on cells grown in the lab will identify how much pain can be inflicted on someone before causing injury or death.

Long-term risk

New Scientist contacted two researchers working on the project. Martin Richardson, a laser expert at the University of Central Florida, US, refused to comment. Brian Cooper, an expert in dental pain at the University of Florida, distanced himself from the work, saying “I don’t have anything interesting to convey. I was just providing some background for the group.” His name appears on a public list of the university’s research projects next to the $500,000-plus grant.

John Wood of University College London, UK, an expert in how the brain perceives pain, says the researchers involved in the project should face censure. “It could be used for torture,” he says, “the [researchers] must be aware of this.”

Amanda Williams, a clinical psychologist at University College London, fears that victims risk long-term harm. “Persistent pain can result from a range of supposedly non-destructive stimuli which nevertheless change the functioning of the nervous system,” she says. She is concerned that studies of cultured cells will fall short of demonstrating a safe level for a plasma burst. “They cannot tell us about the pain and psychological consequences of such a painful experience.”

The 23rd Sigh

A Prayer for the Dying in amerika....

Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want.
He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.
He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.
He restoreth my fears.
He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war,
I will find no exit, for thou art in office.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discomfort me.
Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the presence of thy religion.
Thou anointest my head with foreign oil.
My health insurance runneth out.

Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term,
And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Fallen Hero.... Dr. Thompson

I got the call at 2:30 this morning informing me of Hunter S. Thompson's death by a self inflicted gunshot wound. Apparently a suicide but I also wouldn't be suprised if, given his penchant for handling firearms while extremely drunk, it were an accident. At least that's what I try to tell myself. The TV news of course mentions his authorship of "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas" which is a fantastic piece of work but by far his best and most important work was his startling and brilliant political writing and his lifelong mission of warning Americans of the looming danger of fascism and the crimes and real agenda of the far right. It must have been hard for him to send out warning after warning for 30 years and to see things turn out the way they have. While current events are disturbingly similar to the textbook definition of fascism, thankfully we are still a long way from mobs of uniformed Republicans firebombing Democrat owned businesses and lynching their owners as happened in fascist Italy and other places through history.

Nonetheless he was the epitome of the qualities that (to me at least) define a great American- eccentric, defiant, free spirited and willing to stick his neck out in the defense of the ideals that truly represent the promise of democracy. Freedom of mind, freedom of spirit, opposition to bigotry and greed, and standing up for those of us who are powerless to control our own destiny. Regardless of what has been done in "our" name, and whether or not you approve of it, America is more than a place, it is more than a color scheme, it represents the possibility and the right of ALL people to prosper and live free.

We owe it to him to never give up and to stand up for what we believe and to realize the promise of humanity. We owe it to him, to Marting Luther King, to Bobby Kennedy, William Wallace, Che Guevara, Crazy Horse, our founding fathers, our veterans and all those who have stuck their necks out for the crazy ideas of freedom and justice.

So toss one back and toss one over your shoulder for the old man, this ain't over yet.....

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Death

This has been a couple of difficult months. Someone that I've known for almost 31 years is dying, and it's just breaking my heart.

I don't know if you've ever had to be a caregiver to an adult that needs to be fed, bathed, and carried around, but it is the hardest damn thing to do in the world. Especially when they say that they are ready to die.

I'm trying to hang in there, but it's difficult. It's hard watching people that I love not taking care of themselves; hell, I'm doing it, too, but I'm young and not on any daily meds. I wish that I could espouse more about the situation, but I just don't wanna get too personal on my blog.

Anyway, If you're the type that has never been through this, I don't know what to say. I can say that for me, even though this process, this thing of trying to help someone comfortably reach the afterlife, the otherside, death, the great never, heaven, is something that I will never forget and that will shape me for the rest of my own life. There's also something good about being able to be there for that person, because that person has allowed you to be a part of this process that we all must go through at some time. (Where are the nanobots??? 'Scuze my slight tanget, there...)

Yes, there is something beautiful about being able to take care of someone that you love while they are dying. Sometimes it's hard to see it while you look at the catheter coming out of their body, or the blue spots that are forming on their legs, or the congestion that never quite leaves their chest. You can hold their hand and weep and feel so much pain, and you can go in to work and think about it and feel the pain and the tears start running down your face 'cause it is so fucking hard to deal with. But you can be grateful that you are able to be there and that you have had the chance to forgive them, and be forgiven for all of the unavoidable fucked up things that will happen in relationships, and maybe, just maybe, when the emotions get put on hold for a second, or they are so drained that the logic has gotta drive for a little while, you can look back at the good things that the person did in your life, and allow them the freedom to leave when they are ready to go.

Letting go.... that is the hardest for those that are left behind.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

No more pollitix on the 'net, girls n' boys.....

Shamlessly lifted from DRUDGE:

FEC May Tighten Restrictions On Internet Political Activity
Mon Feb 14 2005 10:38:41 ET

The Federal Election Commission next month will begin looking at tightening restrictions on political activities on the Internet, ROLL CALL reports Monday.

The FEC is planning to examine the question of how Internet activities, when coordinated with candidates' campaigns, fit into the definition of 'public communications.

Specifically, the FEC is planning to examine the question of how Internet activities, when coordinated with candidates' campaigns, fit into the definition of "public communications." While coordinated communications are considered campaign contributions and therefore subject to strict contribution limits, current FEC regulations adopted in 2002 carve out an exemption for coordinated political communications that are transmitted over the Internet.

Developing...