Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Dear George Bush,

It's your birthday in just a few short hours, and so, today and tomorrow, this blog will be running a special feature: This Is Your Life, George Bush. No. We won't be focusing on your crummy academic record or on your disgraceful performance in the Air National Guard. We won't be talking about the coke arrest that your well-placed daddy got expunged in return for you doing some "community service." Nor will we focus on all the business opportunities that were handed to you that you managed to screw up. We don't think it would be fair to point out that you were asked to leave a board of directors because you had nothing to offer or that the taxpayers of Texas made you a rich man by subsidizing a new ball field for you even though you think it's terrible for folks to live off the government. A little trouble with the SEC? Not for us. We're not going to talk about all the drugs and booze or about your drunk driving conviction. So you mocked a sincere xian and sentenced her to death; that's not what we care about. We're not going to spend your birthday looking at what an abysmal job of parenting you did, especially when contrasted with, oh, say, Bill Clinton or John Kerry. We won't talk about your sleazy campaign tactics or how you stole the 2000 and 2004 elections.

No, we think a much more fitting tribute would be to focus on what you've accomplished during your time in the WH. And, so, with all the fervor we can muster, we say: Happy Birthday, Mr. President. Here's what you'll be remembered for.

You ass.

Just Another Reason Why Net Neutrality Matters

WaPo has a fantastic article about dissatisfied customers using the web to get back at companies with poor customer service. The story notes that, "Blogs, Videos Are Tools of Retribution
By Kim Hart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 5, 2006; Page D01

Disgruntled customers used to have little recourse against poor service and broken promises.

But as angry clients increasingly turn to the Internet to settle scores, companies, independent retailers and everyday wrongdoers are learning that consumers can have the last word -- and often the last laugh. The Web has turned into a place where shame and humiliation are sometimes the strongest weapons in fighting scams and unfairness.

AOL got burned last week, for example, when an exasperated customer recorded and broadcast online a service representative's emphatic reluctance to cancel his service. Comcast Corp. fired a technician after a videotape surfaced purporting to show him asleep on a customer's couch. The clip became popular on Web sites such as amateur video site YouTube. People are also using the Internet to retaliate against common thieves and discourtesies. A popular blog on Friday posted voice mails from a man demanding that his date pay him back for half the dinner check after the romance fizzled. In June, a New York man posted pictures online of a girl who allegedly refused to return his friend's T-Mobile Sidekick that had been taken from a taxicab. The Web site became popular among other victims of cellphone theft, and it led to the girl's arrest. And there also was the South Korean woman who was humiliated last year when she didn't clean up the mess her dog left in the subway after a fellow train rider posted a photo of the incident on a popular Web site.

"There's no question that publicly shaming someone, whether it is a politician or a company, is the best way not only to get their attention but to change their behavior," said Jeff Chester, executive director for the District-based consumer-advocacy group Center for Digital Democracy. "People are going to be very sensitive to it."

Online disgrace creates so much buzz on blogs and in the media that companies are beginning to realize the devastating public relations effects brought on by these grass-roots expos?s, said Gemma Puglisi, assistant professor of communications at American University."

However, the article closes with a warning: ""As the Internet becomes more ad-supported, it's questionable if consumers and users will have any real clout," [Chester] said. "Will a Fortune 500 company hear the sound of one angry blogger in the digital forest?""


Oh, and by the way, Amex? I fucking hate your fuckng phone system. Even after the six goddamn minutes it took me to finally get the robovoice to say, "If you want to speak to a representative, say 'representative,'" then I had to listen to six more choices and say "representative" again. Fucking ridiculous.

Ken Lay Is Dead. The Motherfucker.

You know what really killed him? WaPo reports that, "On Friday, federal prosecutors asked a judge to order Lay and former Enron executive Jeffrey K. Skilling to turn over $182.2 million in assets, arguing that their homes and other assets were acquired by fraud." Having to turn over his ill-gotten goods was far more than his "heart" -- and I use that term loosely -- could handle.

I'm only sorry that he died at his expensive home, in his bed, in motherfucking Aspen, Colorado, in a quick and relatively painless manner. I was hoping he'd have many years to spend in jail, thinking about what he'd done.

Look, this is far from the first heart attack caused by the Enron scandal. We just didn't have front-page articles written about the lineman in the Pacific Northwest who worked his entire life keeping the lights on for people and then saw his entire pension disappear in one fell swoop. Nor were there front-page articles about little old ladies whose hearts gave out due to the stress of not being able to pay for both electricity and medicine in Southern California while their son's family business had to close because the electricity bill quadrupled overnight.

Ken Lay was a thief. A crook. A dirty, rotten creep who didn't care how much he hurt anyone else. Oh, and he was George Bush's biggest contributor. And one of the principals in Cheney's secret energy task force. Wonder if they'll send Cheney to the funeral.

Absofuckinglutely Amazing

I don't normally blog the same things, as Atrios, because I figure most people who are kind enough to visit this blog come here from Eschaton, but I'm going to make an exception, today. Atrios has a link to the ever-snarky Jesus' General, who links to a truly disturbing story about some xians who've managed to run a Jewish family out of town (that's right, you heard me, and yes, this is 2006, thanks for asking). As he reports, "A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit.

[...]

On the evening in August 2004 when the board was to announce its new policy, hundreds of people turned out for the meeting. The Dobrich family and Jane Doe felt intimidated and asked a state trooper to escort them.

The complaint recounts a raucous crowd that applauded the board's opening prayer and then, when sixth-grader Alexander Dobrich stood up to read a statement, yelled at him 'take your yarmulke off!' His statement, read by Samantha, confided 'I feel bad when kids in my class call me Jew boy.'

...A former board member suggested that Mona Dobrich might 'disappear' like Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the atheist whose Supreme Court case resulted in ending organized school prayer. She disappeared in 1995 and her dismembered body was found six years later.

The crowd booed an ACLU speaker and told her to 'go back up north.'

In the days after the meeting the community poured venom on the Dobriches. Callers to the local radio station said the family they should convert or leave the area. Someone called them and said the Ku Klux Klan was nearby."

And, as you can see from the post, the creep who printed the family's name is happy about the results!

I'm not even going to bother pointing out that this behavior sounds remarkably unlike anything that the Jesus of Nazareth I grew up reading about would want done in his name. This is how xians act every chance they get and it's how they've acted from the Crusades to the Burning Times to today.

What I am going to point out is that if they ran a Jewish family out of town and yelled at a little boy to take off his yarmulke, you can just imagine what they'd do to a Wiccan family. The theocratic states of America are really beginning to piss me off.

Independence Day 2006

Send some energy in Papa Isaac's direction.

Revenge Of Gaia

BBC has an interesting set of quotes from various climate scientists concerning James Lovelock's new book, The Revenge of Gaia, which argues that "climate change poses a major threat to the Earth's well-being, that nuclear power is the best short-term energy option, and that the size of the human population is at the root of our environmental problems."

Susan Owens, Professor of Environment and Policy, Cambridge University says, "I don't think the global community has ever dealt with an issue on the scale of climate change. I do think it takes us into the territory of population and consumption; both issues are very difficult politically."

Chris Rapley, Director, British Antarctic Survey, explaints that Lovelock's book "does raise these issues... about how, collectively, we deal with something that is unprecedented; that is, how the aggregate behaviour of 6.5bn people needs somehow to be changed - how do you do that?"

********************************************************************

I've said before and I'll say again, we can either deal with our overpopulation problem or we can let the planet deal with it for us.

Osama bin Forgotten

The NYT reports that, "The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday. The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said."

Although the agency attempted to spin the story to maintain that they are still actively trying to find bin Laden, who has claimed responsibility for the murder of thousands of people on September 11, 2001, the NYT notes that, "Michael Scheuer, a former senior C.I.A. official who was the first head of the unit, said the move reflected a view within the agency that Mr. bin Laden was no longer the threat he once was. Mr. Scheuer said that view was mistaken. 'This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda," he said. "These days at the agency, bin Laden and Al Qaeda appear to be treated merely as first among equals.'"

As Bush said in a press conference in March of 2002, "So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. . . . I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."

Bill Clinton caught the people responsible for the first attack on the World Trade Center, gave them a fair trial, and threw their asses in jail. George Bush and his CIA aren't even looking for Osama bin Laden.

The Reason That We Celebrate The Fourth of July

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Hillary to Joe Liberman: Either Run As A Dem Or Bite me

Jane says Hillary will do the right thing in Connecticut. I don't expect the Hillary-haters to give her any credit for this, but she represents NYC, a city that supports Israel to a large extent, and she's doing the right thing, nonetheless.

I've Been In Love With Andy Goldsworthy For A Long Time

I adore the work he makes here and the way he discusses the need for solitude.


"The very edge of its collapse. And it's a very beautiful -- balance." Yes. Yes, yes, and ah, yes.

The Whales Win One For A Change

Thank the Goddess. WaPo is reporting that: "A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday barring the Navy from using a type of sonar, allegedly harmful to marine mammals, during a Pacific warfare exercise scheduled to begin this week.

The order comes three days after the Navy obtained a six-month national defense exemption from the Defense Department allowing it to use "mid-frequency active sonar." Environmental groups had sued to stop the sonar use during the exercises off Hawaii. The sonar portion of the war games was set to start Thursday. U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper wrote in her order that the plaintiffs 'have shown a possibility that RIMPAC 2006 will kill, injure, and disturb many marine species, including marine mammals, in waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands.'

There is absolutely NO reason for war games to be used to kill marine life. Nor does our Navy need to be excused from every fucking environmental law in existence.