Fear Mongers

One of the infamous "they're gonna take your bibles away" mailers from the GOP.

Will they stoop lower than this? You bet your ass.

Long, strange trip

Wired News discusses the positive developments in psychedelic research.

Carter fears another Florida debacle

Here we go again....

Grandpa "Nazi" Bush

Link

From the Guardian:

The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

The ubiquitous monkey-sniffing-his-butt-and-smelling-his-finger Internet pass-around award

UPDATE: I get so many hits from people looking for the iconic great ape sniffing his butt video clip that I'm just going to link to it:

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/monkeybutt.mpg

It is one of the most wonderful examples of the joy that can be spread via the Inner-net, after all.

It's things like this that get us through troubled times.

Billions and billions

Link

With apologies to the dearly departed Carl Sagan: the cost of the Iraq war, brought to you by George Bu$h & Company.

Words of hope from Howard Zinn

One of the most inspirational messages I've read in some time. Required reading to get rid of the malaise of those distorted poll numbers and "Kerry can't win" whiners.

Link courtesy of The Nation.

Some dare call it "Pseudo Fascism"

Link

Excerpt:


All of these appeals have come wrapped in the twin themes that are central to the appeal of the conservative movement:

-- An insistence that the movement represents the only "real Americans."

-- Pervasive expressions of contempt for the weak.

These latter traits, in particular, expose the underpinnings of the "conservative movement" for their genuinely corrosive and divisive nature.

But does all this add up to fascism?

Not in its fullest sense. But it does replicate, in nearly every regard, the architecture of fascism in its second stage of growth -- the stage at which, in the past, it has obtained power.

All that is needed for a full manifestation of American fascism, at this point, is for a genuine crisis of democracy to erupt. And if that occurs, it is almost inevitable that the differences between fascism and pseudo-fascism will vanish.

Activists Find More E-Vote Flaws

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Jefferson added that he doesn't believe that the vulnerabilities show deliberate malice on Diebold's part to aid fraud, as Harris has sometimes contended in public statements. But the vulnerabilities do show incompetence and indicate that Diebold programmers simply don't know how to design a secure system.

Millions blocked from voting in U.S. Election

Tip of the hat to my man Norm for alerting me to this article.

Link

Millions of U.S. citizens, including a disproportionate number of black voters, will be blocked from voting in the Nov. 2 presidential election because of legal barriers, faulty procedures or dirty tricks, according to civil rights and legal experts.

Cat Stevens -- Terrorist

Link

I guess he'll have to ride on the Peace Train instead.... (sorry, couldn't help myself).

2002 Plan to Steal Iraq's Oil

Excerpt:

Not only does Iraq have vast quantities of easily accessible oil,
but its oil is almost untouched. "Think of Iraq as virgin territory ....
This is bigger than anything Exxon is involved in currently .... It is
the superstar of the future," says Gheit, "That's why Iraq becomes the
most sought-after real estate on the face of the earth."

Gheit just smiles at the notion that oil wasn't a factor in the U.S.
invasion of Iraq. He compares Iraq to Russia, which also has large
undeveloped oil reserves. But Russia has nuclear weapons. "We can't just
go over and ... occupy (Russian) oil fields," says Gheit. "It's a
different ballgame." Iraq, however, was defenceless, utterly lacking,
ironically, in weapons of mass destruction. And its location, nestled in
between Saudi Arabia and Iran, made it an ideal place for an ongoing
military presence, from which the U.S. would be able to control the
entire Gulf region. Gheit smiles again: "Think of Iraq as a military
base with a very large oil reserve underneath .... You can't ask for
better than that."

Link

Repuglicans attacking Bush Iraq "reconstruction"

Link

Among those harshly criticizing the White House at a hearing were the two top Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Chairman Richard Lugar of Indiana and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Of the $18.4 billion Congress approved last year for Iraqi reconstruction, only $1.1 billion has been spent because of violence and other problems. Hagel called that record "beyond pitiful and embarrassing; it is now in the zone of dangerous."

Soldiers being threatened with Iraq duty

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President Bush You Killled My Son

Link

One valiant, determined woman!

Doom and Gloom Report from U.S. Intelligence Agencies

Well.... DUH!

Link from BBC News.

Kofi Annan labels invasion "Illegal"

But the Coalition of the Coerced says otherwise.

Link

Too high to fly?

Let's see if this gets as much scrutiny as the Swift Boat Liars' claims about Kerry. Somehow, I don't see that happening.

Link

From the Nation:

Even more significantly, in a July interview, Linda Allison, the widow of Jimmy Allison, the Alabama campaign manager and a close friend of Bush's father, revealed to me for the first time that Bush had come to Alabama not because the job had appeal or because his presence was required but because he needed to get out of Texas. "Well, you have to know Georgie," Allison said. "He really was a totally irresponsible person. Big George [George H.W. Bush] called Jimmy, and said, he's killing us in Houston, take him down there and let him work on that campaign.... The tenor of that was, Georgie is in and out of trouble seven days a week down here, and would you take him up there with you."

Allison said that the younger Bush's drinking problem was apparent. She also said that her husband, a circumspect man who did not gossip and held his cards closely, indicated to her that some use of drugs was involved. "I had the impression that he knew that Georgie was using pot, certainly, and perhaps cocaine," she said.

Now-prominent, established Texas figures in the military, arts, business and political worlds, some of them Republicans and Bush supporters, talk about Bush's alleged use of marijuana and cocaine based on what they say they have heard from trusted friends. One middle-aged woman whose general veracity could be confirmed told me that she met Bush in 1968 at Hemisfair 68, a fair in San Antonio, at which he tried to pick her up and offered her a white powder he was inhaling. She was then a teenager; Bush would have just graduated from Yale and have been starting the National Guard then. "He was getting really aggressive with me," she said. "I told him I'd call a policeman, and he laughed, and asked who would believe me." (Although cocaine was not a widespread phenomenon until the 1970s, US authorities were struggling more than a decade earlier to stanch the flow from Latin America; in 1967 border seizures amounted to twenty-six pounds.)

Bush himself has publicly admitted to being somewhat wild in his younger years, without offering any details. He has not explicitly denied charges of drug use; generally he has hedged. He has said that he could have passed the same security screening his father underwent upon his inauguration in 1989, which certifies no illegal drug use during the fifteen preceding years. In other words, George W. Bush seemed to be saying that if he had used drugs, that was before 1974 or during the period in which he left his Guard unit.

The family that rented Bush a house in Montgomery, Alabama, during that period told me that Bush did extensive, inexplicable damage to their property, including smashing a chandelier, and that they unsuccessfully billed him twice for the damage--which amounted to approximately $900, a considerable sum in 1972. Two unconnected close friends and acquaintances of a well-known Montgomery socialite, now deceased, told me that the socialite in question told them that he and Bush had been partying that evening at the Montgomery Country Club, combining drinking with use of illicit drugs, and that Bush, complaining about the brightness, had climbed on a table and smashed the chandelier when the duo stopped at his home briefly so Bush could change clothes before they headed out again.

It is notable that in 1972, the military was in the process of introducing widespread drug testing as part of the annual physical exams that pilots would undergo.

More Neocon Hypocrisy

Why is the Neocon cabal supporting the Chechen "terrorists"? Why do they push for Russia to negotiate with the Chechen fighters, while arguing against any form of negotiation with our avowed enemies?

Hmmm.... could it be the 3 ton elephant in the room -- oil?

Check out this Guardian article and ask yourself that question.

Swift Liars

Link

Swift boat veteran Bob Anderson of Columbus is ticked.

It bothers him that Sen. John Kerry's swift boat history has become such a political hot potato. But he's even more irritated that his name was included -- without his permission -- on a letter used to discredit Kerry.

"I'm pretty nonpolitical," the 56-year-old Anderson said Tuesday. So, when he found out last week that his name was one of about 300 signed on a letter questioning Kerry's service, he was "flabbergasted."

Historians rip Arnie's bullshit

Link

Austrian historians are challenging California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for telling the Republican National Convention that he saw Soviet tanks in his homeland as a child and that he left a "Socialist" country when he moved away in 1968.

Pollution on the brain

Link

Pollutants cause huge rise in brain diseases

Scientists alarmed as number of cases triples in 20 years

Jews irked at GOP cross

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Speakers at this week's Republican convention make their remarks at a wooden podium that some Jewish groups find offensive because its decorative panels appear to form the shape of a Christian cross.

A cross is even more visible in a waist-high gavel stand adjacent to the podium, leading some to question whether the party is trying to send a subtle message to its base among conservative Christians.

"It is the very height of insensitivity for the Republican Party to feature a cross at the center of the podium of this convention," Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, said in a statement.

"This wooden cross must be at least three feet (one meter) tall, and it sends a signal of exclusivity loudly and clearly."

GOP podium crosses

Finally... someone else picked up on this:

Link



Creepy, eh?

They Live!

A picture is worth a thousand words....

2600 Magazine editor arrested

For the horrific crime of videotaping a protest.

link

Kalifornia Uber Alles! More Governator

Link

Arnold Schwarzenegger's past is a problem. It turns out that he didn't just grope unwilling women, smoke hashish, and engage in group sex at the gym.

ABC News now reports that when he was asked who his heroes were, in a 1975 interview, Schwarzenegger answered:

"I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it."

Of course, what Hitler "did with it" was to destroy democracy in Germany, exterminate more than six million Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals, and wage a war of brutal aggression against the civilized world . . .

Schwarzenegger added that he longed for an experience of his own, "like Hitler in the Nuremberg stadium. And have all those people scream at you and just being total agreement whatever you say."

Scwharzenegger reportedly got his Nuremberg stadium wish at the San Diego Convention Center this morning.

California uber alles.

Rotten Arnie -- with dick pic!

link

See, Arnold invited Kurt Waldheim to the wedding, who had been a friend of Gustav's (Arnold's father, remember?), and who also happened to be a Nazi. No beating around the bush here; the man was a war criminal, and in fact was banned the year after Schwarzenegger's wedding from entering the United States. Waldheim was unable to attend the wedding, but instead did the right thing and sent along a sculpture of the newlyweds, depicting Arnold hoisting Maria on his shoulders, him dressed in lederhosen and she in a dirndl skirt and laced-up blouse. This spectacularly taste-variant gift inspired Arnold to raise a glass to Waldheim in his absence and propose a toast to him. His support for Waldheim has not diminished with time.

Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus

George W. Bush's grandfather helped finance the Nazi Party. Karl Rove's grandfather allegedly helped run the Nazi Party, and helped build the Birkenau Death Camp. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian father volunteered for the infamous Nazi SA and became a ranking officer.

link

Burn in Zell

"For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the
reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press."



No comment.

(Not so) subliminal Xtian imagery at GOPig convention

Why hasn't anyone pointed out the cross shape in the GOP Convention podiums (podia?)?

If anyone finds an image, please email me.