TBT: The Brutal Truth

Bush "Logic" In Action

There's been a lack of blogging activity here not of my own volition. With the temperature in the 90s here and the humidity matching it, that gives us an overall heat index around the century mark. When the weather gets that hot in this rented house of mine -- a house that, dispite all the holes that give birth to birds and bumble bees, does not have any air conditioning whatsoever -- it makes running a computer not only impossible but stupid if you have don't liquid cooling such as Koolance.

Harddrives, video cards, and CPUs are the largest producers of heat in a computer. With traditional air cooling, your computer can only be just as cool as the ambient temperature of the room it exists in.  Therefore, if your intake fans are taking 90 degree saturated from the room, it's not cool things a whole lot. Since hot air rises, all that heat goes to the power supply unit, which generates it own heat and, if it gets too hot, it can overheat and totally fail. I blew two power supply units last summer and I can't afford to lose the one I have. That means the computer stays off until sundown at around 9PM and thus too late to do any real blogging (because my focus is on cooling off myself -- not working myself up in a lather over something I read to such degree that I just gotta rant and rave).
 
But something interesting and mildly poetic happened on Memorial Day here -- you see, Talk America shut the phone off today. Yeah. They called last Wednesday and I gave the representative an earful. The conversation went like this:
 

Talk America: "May I speak to ... <mother's name>."

Me: "She's sleeping."

Talk America: "Okay it's very important that we reach her by 5PM today ..."
 
Me: "This is about a payment isn't it?!?"

Talk America: "Sir, I can't discuss that with you unless your name is on the account."

Me: "Bullshit. As secondary beneficiary of her estate, I'm hereby excercise my power of attorney, so whatever you've got to say to her you can now say to me."
 
Talk America: "Unfortunately, sir, I can't legally discuss it with you since your name isn't on the account ..."
 
Me: "Don't even try it -- when Talk Americas' legal beagles decided to comply with Bush's NSA legal beagles about spying on all her calls without a warrant -- including this very conversation of ours -- I think all of Talk America's so-called legalities went right the fuck out the window, including that nasty legality about paying the rest of bill. So, may Bush, the NSA, Talk America and all its shareholders rot in hell, and you, Ma'am, are legally free to join them -- *CLICK*"

 
That was late last week. But Memorial Day sparked the discovery that Talk America decided to cut the phone service here. Still get a dial tone, mind you, but if we try to make a call, we either get forwarded to Talk America's customer service or a recording that says that the number is out of service.

The bad news?

By not having a phone, I can't call Gwen's transportation to pick her for pre-school and thus may see The Summer Vacation Santa come a little early, can't call an ambulance in case I discover she's allergic to bee stings or if my mother has another heart attack (not that I'd really want to considering the number the EMTs did on my father when he laid dead on the floor). Can't recieve calls in case a $50-an-hour computer service job opens for me. You know -- piddly shit like that!
 
The good news?
 
By not having a phone, it's just one less avenue Bush and his NSA asshats can use to assert their only-legal-in-the-Wiemar-sense right to spy on blue-haired, social security collecting grandmothers whose only sole credential to actual acts of terrorism is all those times they might've bawled "Bingo!" all by themselves down at the VFW ... and boy, I bet that shit sure pisses The Decider/Texas Oil Hick right the fuck off!
 

BUSH: "Dammit, why does Talk America hate America?!?"

 
Hey, Geogie-Porgie-Oil-Pudding-Pie, it's not a total loss. As long as Charter Communication's own outsourced technicians stay away from cutting the cable and internet service here, your big bad Satan-worshipping self still has a means of keeping one split-toe hoof inside the Sizemore household. But I wouldn't bet on that -- Charter's about due to pull their shit again. Then what are you gonna do?
 

BUSH: "Fuck! You assholes just killed a sleeper cell that has his mama on board!! Turn their phones and their internets on right now or I'll be waterboarding Paul Allen's ass by week's end!"

That's the only choice ol' Bushy will have soon. Why? Because he knows I'm not going to cane my ass down to the library on the corner to update this blog, especially after he cut their budgets and their operating hours a loooong time ago.
 
A hatchin' Sizemore goes,
A plottin' Sizemore knows,
Hannity-Ho - O'Rielly-Oh
Not knowin' sure does blow ...

posted by Sizemore at 5:35 AM | 0 comment(s)

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Blogrolling Update And A Round Of Kudos

AmericaBlog has been WHACKED from my "Truth Disciples" Blogroll. Why? Well, the reasons are long and quite documented here if you wish to do a seach in the box off to the right, but the final nail in the coffin came upon reading that someone (I wonder who) complained to Blogger about AravosisBlog -- a parody blog that emerged in the wake John Aravosis's recent "Joe Kline Moment".

Gideon with the onion peels:

"Johnny A-List," the pseudonym of a blogger who has created a site that parodies John Aravosis, has been told by Blogger that "someone" filed a complaint against the satirical "ARAVOSISblog" and it may be shut-down tomorrow as a result. While the real Aravosis has not been named, it's hard to believe that the complaint was filed by anyone else.

Absolutely. I mean, there's only a few degrees of seperation from an A-List liberal blogger going from Joe Kline-esque "Get Off My Blog" rants to graduating to Michele Malkin tactics so the complainer was either John Aravosis himself or one his remaining brainwashed thralls.

So, John Aravosis and AmericaBlog have been replaced with the very parody site he or one of this goons tried to shut down -- AravosisBlog -- because I'm led to believe that John Aravosis, despite his education and his years of experiance in political circles, his mouth probably burned plenty of those bridges and thus he's down to blogging and activism for a living. In other words, he a leftwing version of L. Brent Bozell.

Also wanna give some Kudos to those who recently made Pay-Pal contributions -- you know who you are and I appreciate every little red cent of your help and every whit of your generosity. Also want to welcome David Collins from FollowTheLinks.Com as well as Res Republica from the Republic Of Dogs to the Blogroll and a big thanks to other blogs off the beaten track that have linked to my posts here regarding the implosion of John Aravosis.

Crash his fuckin' gate ...

posted by Sizemore at 2:56 AM | 5 comment(s)

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Shreddin' And Shroomin'

Going to go rapid fire here, so hold on tight. First off, Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to fellow "Other Republican" William Jefferson of New Orleans to step down from the Ways and Means committee. Jefferson tells Pelosi to take a flyin' leap:

Leader Pelosi:

I have received your letter of this date requesting my immediate resignation from the Ways and Means Committee. With respect, I decline to do so.

Within a few hours, apparently someone barged into Pelosi's office and simply said, "Nice awwwfice ya got heah, Nanseeeee. Twud be a shaaaayme if somethin' baaaaad happened to ya in nit" because Pelosi suddenly joins Speaker Dennis Hastert for a little caterwaul duet:

Pelosi, D-California, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, released a joint statement Wednesday saying that the FBI should immediately return all documents it "unconstitutionally seized" Saturday from Jefferson's office.

The sharply worded statement came just hours after Pelosi sent a letter to the Louisiana Democrat, urging him to resign his post on the House Ways and Means Committee, a request Jefferson refused.

This turn of events led CNN's Jack Cafferty to go apeshit on all of them, ending with a nice good weal on The Bearded Persistantly Vegetative Fruitbat formerly known as Wolf Blitzer:

Congress seems to think it's fine for the NSA to spy on all of us without any sort of a warrant whatsoever. But it's not okay for the FBI to conduct a raid on Congressman William Jefferson's office with a warrant after finding $90,000 in his freezer and, after waiting weeks for him to comply with a sapoena to turn over evidence in an ongoing corruption investigation -- evidence which he has refused so far to turn over.

Now, members of both parties are all worked up about this. They positively have their shorts in a knot over this. You see, they want the Capitol Police to handle their stuff -- you know, the same ones that failed to give Patrick Kennedy a breathalizer after crashing his car into a stationary barrier a couple of weeks ago. Instead, they just drove Kennedy home and said, "Goodnight, congressman, and have a nice evening." You see, the Capitol Police answer to Congress.

The Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert even complained personally to President Bush about the raid on Congressman Jefferson's office. It is believed to be the first raid of a Congressional office in over 219 years. Well, judging by the reaction on Capitol Hill, maybe the FBI outta raid their offices more often. What is it do you suppose they might be hiding in those offices? Once again, Congress is demanding a different set of standards for themselves ...

I find it fascinating that suddenly the debate is about whether or not the FBI can search this guy's office. It's not about the FBI video tape that shows him taking a $100,000 payoff or his refusal to comply with a sopoena to hand over evidence in an ongoing corruption investigation. The Congress people -- Republicans and Democrats -- are all afraid the FBI might want to look in their office.

Unbelievable.

Anyway, save your thoughts, Wolf.

But the latest salvo in this mess is, by far, the sweetest. Speaker Hastert is under investigation himself for ties to Jack Abramoff and he went off on ABC News for reporting it, saying that he was not part at all in that particular ungoing corruption investigation, and demanded ABC News to retract the story and offer an immediate apology. The Feds respond to Hastert by essentially telling ABC News that Hastert is fucking shroomin':

Despite a flat denial from the Department of Justice, federal law enforcement sources tonight said ABC News accurately reported that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is "in the mix" in the FBI investigation of corruption in Congress.

Speaker Hastert said tonight the story was "absolutely untrue" and has demanded ABC News retract its story.

Law enforcement sources told ABC News that convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff has provided information to the FBI about Hastert and a number of other members of Congress that have broadened the scope of the investigation. Sources would not divulge details of the Abramoff’s information.

"You guys wrote the story very carefully but they are not reading it very carefully," a senior official said.

"Whether they like it or not, members of Congress, including Hastert, are under investigation," one federal official said tonight.

The investigation of Hastert’s relationship with Abramoff is in the early stages, according to these officials, and could eventually conclude that Abramoff’s information was unfounded.

The next paragraph explains how there's going to be brownouts over Washington as Republican and Democrat alike claw their way to those shredders last seen chewing on Enron documents:

Officials said the next logical investigative step would be for the FBI to seek a wide range of documents from the members of Congress named by Abramoff, including letters and business documents.

Distinguished Ladies And Gentlemen -- START YOUR ENGINES!!

With any hope for America's sake, they'll end up shredding themselves in the goddamned panic. If not, we can always waterboard whatever left ... or flush it down the Potomac ... or shut our blogs off, take to the streets, riverdance our pissed off selves over there (well, you folks can riverdance -- I'll cane my broken hide amongst you), and proceed to physically toss their corrupt, complacent, blighted carcasses right into the street ... and let Kennedy use them for all for speed bumps.

Either Kennedy.

UPDATE: Steve Gilliard points out that the Corrupti-erm, I mean, Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) were the lads that barged into Pelosi's office and played the ol' race card ...

posted by Sizemore at 4:08 AM | 1 comment(s)

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Gag Me With An RJ-45

In the ongoing investigation into the NSA Spying Scandal, WIRED News the other day leaked the documents of former AT&T technician and whistleblower Mark Kline. Fearing the the documents would be scrubbed for violating potential court orders, I snagged a copy of the damaging PDF and took a good long gander at it. Despite the fact that one of the entrances to "Secret Room 641A" being accompanied by a ramp (for the convenience of any NSA agents confined to wheel chairs), the results are not pretty and not just for AT&T:

One of the devices in the "Cabinet Naming" list is particularly revealing as to the purpose of the "secret room": a Narus STA 6400. Narus is a 7-year-old company which, because of its particular niche, appeals not only to businessmen (it is backed by AT&T, JP Morgan and Intel, among others) but also to police, military and intelligence officials. Last November 13-14, for instance, Narus was the "Lead Sponsor" for a technical conference held in McLean, Virginia, titled "Intelligence Support Systems for Lawful Interception and Internet Surveillance." Police officials, FBI and DEA agents, and major telecommunications companies eager to cash in on the "war on terror" had gathered in the hometown of the CIA to discuss their special problems. Among the attendees were AT&T, BellSouth, MCI, Sprint and Verizon. Narus founder, Dr. Ori Cohen, gave a keynote speech. So what does the Narus STA 6400 do?

Interestingly enough, I had a general idea what it did before the actual documents explained it to me:

"The (Narus) STA Platform consists of standalone traffic analyzers that collect network and customer usage information in real time directly from the message.... These analyzers sit on the message pipe into the ISP cloud rather than tap into each router or ISP device" ... A Narus press release (1 Dec., 1999) also boasts that its Semantic Traffic Analysis (STA) technology "captures comprehensive customer usage data ... and transforms it into actionable information.... (It) is the only technology that provides complete visibility for all internet applications."

Translation? It seems to me that the STA 6400 sniffs everything coming and going on the fiber optic lines down to the nitty gritty but innocently -- semantic analysis of e-mail traffic, Usenet scouring, online gaming, and whether or not some random asshat is leeching way too many gigabytes of porn and pirated movies off E-Donkey in a fucking month, which can allow network heads at ISPs to use the data to either improve services, patch up bottle necks, measure loads during high volumes of peak network usage, and find out which subscribers are overloading and stressing the network too much (which usually results in a warning letter being sent to the subscriber to either tone down their file-sharing or find another ISP). In this regard, the STA 6400 can be very beneficial.

However, since the propeller on my tin hat has a tendency to spin quite naturally these days despite it being pointed downward to keep me grounded and to improve oxygen intake from all the bullshit this country loves to ladle upon us everyday, it didn't take me all but a few seconds to wonder that if the NSA is ordering these things installed on a wide basis in the guise of national security, then I'm led to believe that what the Narus STA 6400 is capable of can be taken to pretty nefarious extremes -- the meticulous spying and logging anything and everything that travels across the fiber optic lines, up to and including breaking and/or deciphering many encryption schemes. It all depends on the firmware -- is the firmware the stock firmware developed by Naras techs that innocently monitors data and customer usage information for improvement purposes or catching network abuse ... or did the NSA request custom firmware to be developed for some double super background secret purpose?

Considering everything that comes out of Bush's mouth has been the farthest thing from the truth, I side with Klein suggesting that the entire internet itself is being used as one big NSA spying farm and suspect the latter scenario because, Shrub's incompetence be damned, I doubt the NSA would be so stupid to assume terrorists wouldn't communicate without using encryption.

I also doubt catching terrorists is the NSA's true goal here because, by spying on every single scrap of information passing over the fiber optics and logging the shit out of it (potentially breaking encryption, too), then what we've got here could be Project ECHELON on steroids -- "actionable data" to plug up leaks, spy on journalists talking to government whistle-blowers, snagging information for that the NSA could turn over to government or corporatations for usage in espionage -- be it domestically or globally, etc.

If it does actually catch another terrorist plot, that's merely a bonus -- a convenient bonus that The Decider will use as a carte blanche justification for it all. It all depends on if The Decider has decided the Constitution is at worst a "goddamned peice of paper" or at best "not a suicide pact" and, since those ideas have long been echoing amongst the catacombs of Freeperville over the past few years, I'd wager The Decider has decided just that.

But the documents also mention a laundry list of ISPs and telephone companies that attended ISS World 2003 and could be just as criminally compliant as AT&T -- corporations such as Earthlink and Comcast to name but only two. In fact, the leaking of these documents and detail of them lead me to suspect every telecommunications corporation and internet service provider. AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and Worldcom might be the largest of the lot, but even little dogs like Talk America have to purchase or use their equipment and infrastructure in the competitive market place. Thus, even if they may not be complying with Bush and the NSA's spying gig as an independent entities, they're doing so by proxy automatically just because the big dogs rule the pound.

We haven't seen the last of this scandal nor the class actions lawsuits that'll follow.

posted by Sizemore at 2:08 AM | 1 comment(s)

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Bourgeois Pig Redux

Short and sweet: Isn't it just a little bit strange that within days of telling his audience that if they're not "Shiny Happy People" to get off his blog, John Aravosis hits the remainder of them up for cash?!?

Boy ... P.T. Barnum, eat your heart out.

UPDATE: Found the following Aravosis-Logic in the comments:

As for getting stuff free, I've usually found that stuff for free is worth what you pay for it, as the saying goes - free consultants and free computer helpers don't usually come running when you have a crisis and they have a dinner party.

Note to Self: If John Aravosis ever offers me legal services pro-bono, decline it since, by his logic here, I'll get exactly what I'm paying for ... and that would be the last thing I need!

posted by Sizemore at 7:56 PM | 0 comment(s)

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Bourgeois Pig

There he goes again:

Guys, anybody who isn't happy, please leave this blog and don't come back. I'm serious. Get out.

Our Constitution is on life support and you freaks have spent over 24 hours worrying about two words in a title, and you're still obsessed over it. None of us have the time to deal with your weekly fit of hysterics, whether it's over Katherine Harris' photo, Cynthia McKinney being a wackjob, commenter Miles being upset that I "made a big deal" about a hate crime that almost killed a gay couple, you being upset that I criticized Howard Dean for his insensitivity to gay issues (which I was proved right on a week later), and on and on and on.

It took me a while to realize it, but there are a minority of my readers who are never going to be happy. Rather than fight our common enemy, you'd rather sit here and beat me up because somehow you get off on that. That's fine. You're no longer welcome. Please leave. And spare me the emails about how you used to love the blog. The blog is the same it's always been. You however have become increasingly nasty and shrill.

I choose to spend my time fighting the enemy. You choose to spend your time fighting friends. Well, you do that. On someone else's blog. You're no longer welcome here, so get out.

You might think that the above comes from AssRocket over at PowerLine, Michele Malkin, or from a random knuckle-dragging Freeper or LGFer but it doesn't. Instead, it comes from AmericaBlog's John Aravosis and the debate that spurred this sanctimonious Joe Kline-esque reaction actually started on his blog and finished at Ms. Shakes's place which goes to show exactly why it won the "Best Group Blog" award in the 2005 Koufax Awards -- it's the online epitome of the "Big Tent" nature the Democratic Party is supposed to be about.

But I'm not going to echo the debate at Ms. Shakes' place because it's still going and best covered over there. Instead, the need to tear into John Aravosis's hide yet again by picking apart his ridiculous rant peice by piece is in order. Ready? Let's go:

Guys, anybody who isn't happy, please leave this blog and don't come back. I'm serious. Get out.

Oooh, no. Not the "Get The Fuck Out" card again ... and being played by a so-called LIBERAL this time instead of the ReThuglican shitbags. Well, sorry Johnny Boy, but my response to liberals who play the "GTFO" card is the same as it was when the ReThugs played it against Democrats back when Bush had approval ratings above 50 percent: The day I leave is the same day clownboats like you decide to pack up your damned sandbox and set the example. Until then, you're just blowing hot air just to hear your own head whistle ...

Our Constitution is on life support ...

... and you're doing such a bang-up job of CPR by telling Democrats and liberals that dissent with you or take issue with something you write to get off your blog and banning those who dare excercise their Constitutional right to free speech. Jesus Christ, no wonder you accepted a Blog-Ad in favor of abolishing the concept of Net Neutrality -- maybe you think pandering to Charter, Comcast, and the telcos will keep us dirty, unwashed masses off your blog ... or maybe you just want to filch money from both them with that ad while also playing "pretend activist" with your readers?

None of us have the time to deal with your weekly fit of hysterics ...

Speaking of hysterics, aren't you about due to force whatever is left of your audience to deal with another installment of your "The Left Hates Money Series" ... or is that in the pike for next week?!? Whenever you're planning to trot that particular circus flea again, you had better hurry because of that recent Blog-Ad servey that ohh soo conveniently shows the majority of blog readers are educated successful people making above $70K, and it needs to be capitalized on, man. You and the rest of the A-List bloggers better get on the ball and milk that shit fast. Gotta soak 'em out of that cash. Fleece 'em outta that gasoline money. Pump it like you're O'Rielly and it's a "War on Fitzmas".

It took me a while to realize it, but there are a minority of my readers who are never going to be happy.

Oooh, how convenient is that shit?!? You know, John, I bet Joe Klein thinks the same thing -- that there's a "minority" of his readers that are never going to be happy, too. Same with the all the other so-called liberal writers in the SCLM that think their dissenters are a "minority" as well such as Howell at the WaPo. Hell, even Joe Lieberman is convinced that his detractors are a "minority" even though Ned Lamont chewed off 30% of his hide off the other day. Earth To John Aravosis -- the Self-Righteousness Express credit card has a very stringent purchasing limit and, just like Klein, Howell, Lieberman, and the Fundy Fristians, you've maxxed it out a long time ago.

Rather than fight our common enemy ...

HA! Who in the hell died and made John Aravosis the supreme authority on deciding for me or anyone who our so-called "common enemy" is?!? Do you honestly think that living in Washington and being involved with politics for 20 years accords you with some kind of moral or ethical authority to bestow on everyone else as your see fit -- an authority that is above and beyond reproach?!? If so -- BULLSHIT -- and you're no different than the bastards we've got for MSM journalists or politicians who believe the same thing. They can't be trusted to sit straight on toilet seat let along talk straight and neither can you.

You're no longer welcome. Please leave.

Blow it out your Georgetown ass! Nobody tells me what website or blog I can visit. Not the NSA, not Charter, not AT&T, not Verizon, not Comcast, not Sen. Shithead, not Rep. Bonehead, not President Lunkhead, and most certainly of all not YOU, you shirt-shilling fuckhead. Last time I checked, you haven't come over here to TBT, busted out with your goddamned bankcard, clicked the Pay-Pal link under my picture, and greased my wheels. Besides, even if you did, I'd only deduct a $5 "Anguish Fee" in having to send the change back to you with a little card that says, "Buy Yourself A Clue Or A Personality -- whichever is 10% cheaper!" and the same goes for everybody that thinks greasing my wheels will ever influence or dictate the who, what, where, when, and how I write here.

And spare me the emails about how you used to love the blog. The blog is the same it's always been.

With pleasure because, as a computer service and repair technician with over 15 years of experiance, we've got a saying that is always accurate: "Over 85% of all computer related problems are directly the fault of the person at the keyboard." The difference between you and me is as least I keep a mirror on my desk so that I can say to my own reflection, "You, sir, are a fuckwit!!" whenever I do something completely stupid despite my exhaustive experiance. Since most blogging takes place at a computer keyboard ... well, do the logic yourself, John. And if you don't have a mirror, no problem -- open a drawer, pull out a CD from its jewel case, flip it over, stare into your reflection and say, "You, sir, are an unmitigated shitheel!" or words to that effect. Any reflective surface and an ounce of humility will suffice ...

You however have become increasingly nasty and shrill.

Find that reflective surface yet?

I choose to spend my time fighting the enemy.

I can see that ... as evidenced by your lame, pathetic attempt to sweep the dissenting masses under the rug via the old and tired technique I call "Musical Threads" before your ultimate Ralph Cramdon "GETOUT!" moment.

You choose to spend your time fighting friends.

Last time I checked, it was I who decides my friends and my enemies, not John Aravosis. As far as I'm concerned, your idea of "friends" is limited to people who agree to agree to kiss your worthless hide and most of them comprise of either other A-List bloggers or people too stupid to realize exactly what they're dealing with -- a "friend of convenience"; one who is almost never around until a want or need arises. Then and only then do you come running to them as a "friend" and, after blowing some smoke up their asses because they're needling you for "being such a stranger", you've got them conveniently distracted so that whatever it is they have that you feel more entitled to can be finessed or filched from them. Once obtained, you cast them off as rubbish until the next time.

In other words, John, you use and exploit people and its going to become alot more apparent between now and November as many more discover that you are just as naked as Bush. Hell, as naked as Adam in the Garden of Eden, for that matter. The only difference is Adam hid his nakedness with a figleaf. You, my "friend", are basically standing out trying to cover your nakedness with an entire orchid while shaking an angry fist at those who crashed your gate -- readers and other bloggers that constitute the very meritocracy you and other A-List blogs love to prattle about (but only when its convenient and serves your purpose).

Meritocracy is a bitch ...

Your response to it is like hearing the squeals of angry pig ...

----

Bourgeois Pig
You got too big
You forgot where you came from
You big blog* star
You took it too far
You better get humble and then some ...

Styx
Bourgeois Pig
(2003)

* = Appologies to Styx and Billy Bob Thorton for taking obvious liberties ...

posted by Sizemore at 1:52 AM | 0 comment(s)

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It's Not Quite The Darkside ...

You may have noticed the Pay-Pal donation box appearing under the ol' mugshot within the last few days and may be worrying that it's some kind of omen that means BlogAds, TV spots, and book deals are sure to follow. Rest assured, that's not happening (well, maybe except for the TV spots but I don't think America's Most Wanted counts) and its because of a number of reasons.

For one, BlogAds is one of those nefarious services where at the onset, anyone with a blog could sign up for but now has become the equivilent of a bourgeois "Gated Community" where A-List bloggers from the right and left serve part-time sentry duty guarding the gate from the dirty B-List blogging masses (that is, whenever they're not blowing all that "Let's Help The Lesser-Known Blogs" smoke up their collective asses). In other words, think of the MSM hallucinating on a bushel of shrooms ... wait, we've allready got that. Nevermind.

Where was I? Ahh, yes -- BlogAds!

The above also brings me to believe that I would literally have to kiss a heck of lot of ass in order to be invited into the BlogAd "Gated Community" and that goes completely against one of my own fundamental rules: I kiss no ass less they shave it first. It's a universal rule that doesn't discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex, or politics. Besides, after 2 and a half years at blogging, it's way too late for this old stale buzzard to pucker up and whore himself out even if I could manage to cast off that rule (and thus crucify whatever values or principals I have left).
 
Of course, if any A-list bloggers were to read that, they'd probably get pissed and cranky and dust off that whole "jealousy/envy" card as their wont to do from time to time whenever one of us B-List, C-List, or Z-list bloggers gets all fuckin' uppity (only to turn around and get doubly-pissed when the MSM plays the same "jealousy/envy" gag against them) but that doesn't apply here.

How come?

Over the past few weeks or months while I've been relatively silent experiancing blogging burnout, I've noticed that if some of the readers of A-list blogs would catch and then question some of the Ad content that I myself find questionable on some A-list liberal blogs, the A-list blogger would have to enage in one hell of a contortionist kabuki dance in order to defend themselves and their Ads (that is until they get pissed and castigate, "trollify", and subsequently ban the reader that brought it all up in their HaloScan).

As nice as it would be for me to recieve 200-300 replies in my own HaloScan (be they positive or negative) let alone 4 or 5 figures from BlogAd revenue, I figure that the best way for me to avoid a kabuki dance myself or alienating my readers would be to avoid BlogAds period even if it means remaining poor and seeing shut-off notices for my gas, electric, and cable in my snail mail.

Plus, if I want to piss off/alienate any potential readers of this blog, I'd rather do it directly -- perhaps via this very post -- as opposed to doing it by proxy and I've been seeing alot of the latter happening on some of the A-list liberal blogs and, in response, the A-list liberal blogger tosses the "It's My Blog - Hit The Bricks If You Don't Like It!" card which I'm starting to find to be more of a universal cop-out more than anything admirable. The more that cop-out gets tossed around, it's going to pull a Bob Novak eventually -- developing a life of its own and growing so goddamned monalithic that it discredits the bloggers more than it protects them and it's one of the reason why I think the idea of having some of these A-List bloggers replace actual MSM collumnists to be an excercise in futilty.

Don't get me wrong -- replacing Joe Klein with John Aravosis would certainly be an improvement -- a vast one -- but one will be hardpressed to not come to the ultimate conclusion that by doing so, TIME is merely replacing the clown drums in a Texas rodeo -- clown and all. If Aravosis is willing to talk down to his audience now in either his blog or his HaloScan, he's willing to do that in an online or dead tree edition of TIME just like Joe Klein does and that's what seperates them both from Molly Ivins, the late Mike Royko, and his current reincarnation as Keith Olbermann.
 
So uh ... yeah, no BlogAds, no 300+ HaloScan replies, and definately no possibility whatsoever of seeing my Feedburner chicklet going above the numeral 5 for the foreseeable future and this post probably ensures that. If not, well maybe this will: the quality of my writing either has or currently is swirling down the hopper right alongside Bush's approval ratings without no rebound in sight as, for the past few weeks whenever I've got a taskbar full or browsers open and notepad fired up with the intent of doing some blogging, that's as far as it goes.

My thoughts veer off to the dire financial and circumstancial problems such as the electric bill, the phone bill, the gas, the cable/internet and the fact that I live in a mouse-infested, bumble-bee riddled, moth farm of a shack with a leaky roof (whenever it rains real hard, the utility closet gets a steady drip-drip-drip that could eventually light this place up like a roman candle because the electric breaker box is in that utility closet, too) and cinder block walls where the bottom 6 inches love to accumulate the lovely substance of black mold that I've neither the cash nor the inclination to deal with any longer (and neither does the landlord for I told him about the utilty closet hole before my father died three years ago ... and it's still there getting worse with each storm). 

At least three times a day, I'll catch out of the corner of my left eye something small and blacker than the mold streaking along the wall and, for a split second I think it's Pope Ratzinger, instead turns out to be a field mouse that I recently discovered -- after pulling a cushion away on my couch looking for a nickle I was short on getting a newspaper not the a nickle but the corner of the cushion closest to the arm chewed pretty well -- had slept with me on the fucking couch all Winter long. That is just in my half of the house alone which is basically a renovated garage (and sure as hell feels like it, too -- both in the Winter climate and whenever one of those bloated bumble bees happens to buzz past my monitor in the Spring/Summer which never ceases to make me flip backward in my chair in a panic)

A step which duals as my only heating duct with a side open for the exhaust tube of the clothes dryer followed by the doorway leading into the other half of the house (a step that gave birth to a blackbird the other afternoon and how the fuck he got into the basement in the first place is someting that I don't want to know since it sure wouldn't surprize me as this sorry-assed house is just like Dick Cheney's heart -- peppered with all kinds of holes but still manages to keep ticking) is the living room and kitchen area where a 62 year old suicidal, hypertensive, chronic migrane headache I call Mom (her chornic headaches; not mine - she's had them since she was a teen). On any given day, she's usually sitting in her chair her head in her hands, fighting over the phone with some asshole government bureaucrat, or with an automated system that wants her to press 3, press 8, insert her social security number, press 9, drape both fucking legs over her head, use her tongue to make her upper denture plate protrude out of her mouth, and then use her hands to scoot along the carpet as if she were a dork-dog hybrid with a bad case of rectal worms, then press 531 followed by the # key, and finally hold on the line another 43 minutes before she gets to even talk an outsourced human being/government bureaucrat.
 
Fuck the kitchen and move on to the stairway in the corner of it by the back door that decends into Sizemore Catacombs where most of the room is taken by a big white cynlider shaped piece of aluminium hooked to an ugly old furnace. This monstrosity is where the heat from the furnace is supposed to rise and heat the whole house but it doesn't. The majority of the heat stays in the swiss cheeze basement because the bottom of that damned aluminum tub is rusted out, causing the furnace to work extra hard burning up a shitload of natural gas. In front of this used to be a nice 30 gallon hot water tank but when the bottom of it rusted out and flooded the entire basement last year, the landlord replaced it with a worthless 17 gallon tank -- worthless because you can't take a shower and do laundry neither at the same time nor within 2-3 hours of each other. All of that in a house out in the boonies, 4 miles from the edge of town, just past the public bus line (and the deadliest intersection in the county), and rent is $575 a month.

Can't afford to live here, can't afford to move, and because of my rapidly deteriorating back and hips, I can hardly physically afford to make it to the bathroom let alone the 4 miles down the road to where all those lucrative jobs are supposed to be in a town rapidly becoming nothing but banks, pharmacies, golf courses, and trailer parks as far as the eye can see in a nation boasting about its 4% unemployment rate. At my father's funeral three years ago, a cousin roughly 10-12 years older than me was using a cane and constantly winced at his slightest move. I didn't have a cane then ... but I do now and I'm only 32 in a country that expects -- nay; demands -- that if I haven't been able to cane my decrepid gimp ass down the road to a $50-an-hour computer service call in the last year, I should still somehow cane my decrepid gimp ass down to flip burgers or greet Wal-Mart shoppers.
 
At this point, my intentions of blogging go away. TBT goes another day without another update and as I close all the open browsers and notepad documents, they're only being replaced with a turbulent, unmitigated, ravenous fury that says if my decrepid gimp ass is going to do any caning anywhere whatsoever, it's going to be down to the Department of Human Services where I use it to emphesize every sylable of "WHAT THE GODDAMNED FUCK?!?" that I roar throughout the entire building because I know damned well that the shit my mother an I are experiancing in this country isn't a burden we share only and that's just more Kerosene for my rage since I believe that in the richest freakin' country in the world, there's no damned excuse for it at all.

None.

And as the inferno starts to consume whatever's left of any rational let alone independedent thought left from the point of my Adams apple up, I start to entertain the wild idea that the solution to America's problems can be inculcated in the following piece of eliminationist rhetoric on a campaign trail somewhere: SAVE AMERICA -- WATERBOARD A  SENATOR!!

If not, it could very well serve as the title to another hit song by Big & Rich.

The point is the lack of cash coming in and the ridiculous quality-of-life in this ... well ... slum of a house that, if it were located in Montana, it would give birth to unibombers and manifestos instead of bumble bees and mice (I can furnish pictures or movies of as I've been tinkering with video capturing, editing, and encoding software) is bleeding into every facet of my thoughts and emotions, which motivates me to just sit here and stew rather than blog because I'm confident it's going to either directly or indirectly effect the quality of my writing if it hasn't allready. Toss in a gallon of apathy and press "Mix".

So, as a last ditch effort  -- a truly desperate effort, to be honest -- I had to break down and do something I hope I'd never would've had to and that's put up a Pay-Pal donation box in the hopes of a miracle ... because at this point, its going to take a miracle to stem the crimson tide my blue liberal eyes see washing upon the shore every single day that beckons me to stop thinking about decent shit and instead entertain pondering on crazy shit -- crazy shit that could pump me full with enough adrenaline, piss, and vinegar to actually try caning my gimp ass down to road to wherever the turbulence leads me ....... and that's probably where DHS and America's Most Wanted comes into the picture.

It's also where my mother leaves the picture.

Nobody will be here to stop her from downing a shitload of her pills.

posted by Sizemore at 5:39 AM | 0 comment(s)

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Achtung, Amerikaners!!

Ales klar, Herr Kommissar:

Whether English is America's "national language" or its national "common and unifying language" was a question dominating the Senate immigration debate. The Senate first voted 63-34 to make English the national language after lawmakers who led the effort said it would promote national unity.

But critics argued the move would prevent limited English speakers from getting language assistance required by an executive order enacted under President Clinton. So the Senate also voted 58-39 to make English the nation's "common and unifying language."

"We are trying to make an assimilation statement," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Tobacco) ...

Missing from this AP report is another Bush/GOP assimilation statement requiring the adoption of a new National Anthem ... and you won't believe how appropriate the candidate is:

Hello, uh-uh oooh
Vienna calling, na na na na na
Hello, uh-uh oooh,
Vienna Calling, na na na na na
Two, one, zero - der alarm ist rot
Wien in not - cha, cha, cha
Vienna Calling ...

Then again, juxtoposing Bush and the Republican Party's blatant Hitlerism with a hit pop-song by Falco is probably a real big insult to Falco. Had his SUV hadn't lost that fight it had with a double-decker bus in the Dominican Republic back in 1998, he'd still be alive today to tell Americans, "We've got something in common -- 'Rock Me Amadeus' is the worst thing to happen to me just like Bush is the worst thing to happen to you and Iraq."

Javoord-erm, I mean, AY!

posted by Sizemore at 8:12 PM | 0 comment(s)

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Another Blue-Balled Chickenhawk

Ben Ferguson contracted a bad case of blue-balls from Rhandi Rhodes.

Crooks And Liars delivers the footage of the big kick in the sack ...

posted by Sizemore at 10:07 PM | 0 comment(s)

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Lost In The Translation

This is one loaded statement from The Bush-Lord:

The privacy of all Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. "The government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval. We are not trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans

Bushy is just spying on the guilty Americans.

You know, the 70% or so that The Decider has decided "just hate 'Murika" ...

(Tin Hat Twirl: Aravosis)

posted by Sizemore at 9:33 PM | 0 comment(s)

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Did Fitz Just Bash The Brain's Brains In?!?

Jason Leopold at reports at Truthout.Org that Karl Rove has been indicted.

TalkLeft chews on the news ...

(Tin Hat Twirl: Alternate Brain)

posted by Sizemore at 8:38 PM | 0 comment(s)

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Spinning Our Wheels

The latest onion peel in the NSA spying scandal prompted a sound smackdown by Glenn Greenwald that I can find only one nitpick with, but it isn't worth wasting time and bandwidth on since it's more of a gripe than anything (and surely not Glenn's fault - hey, sometimes, even a potential truth tends to piss me off ... just not always on a frothing rant).

However, Billmon's response to it gives me some chills for it's aptly titled "Leviathan" and, although I'm not particularly a Hobbes fan, my predilection towards playing video games from time to time has accorded me with the knowledge of a modern-day Leviathan in the form of the squid-like Elder God from the "Legacy of Kain" series and not necessarily because the slithering parasite is voiced by veteran actor Tony Jay.

On the contrary, it's because through that entire series of games -- sporting a plot filled enough anti-heros and anti-protaganists, shady supporting characters, and replete with side orders of time travel, fatalism, prophecy, and religious persecutions that would make Shakespeare himself (or even the Catholic Church) blush -- I see not only art merely immitating life, but hitting too fuckin' close to home with it.

The chill stems from pawn and messiah Raziel when -- after piecing together all the scraps of prophecy and history of the world of Nosgoth together with the ways the Elder God had used both himself and Moebius to alter time and thus Kain and Raziel's true heroic destinies -- he discovers the real morbid nature and purpose of the parasitic Elder God's and His tyrannic "Wheel of Fate" that re-spins all souls into perpetual re-incarnation to replay the same life over and over:

But I was armed with newfound knowledge, and it burned within me. Moebius had never seen his master until the Soul Reaver purified his sight. Even the ancient Vampires had no idea what it was they so righteously worshipped. All the conflict and the strife throughout history, all the fear and hatred, served but one purpose: to keep my master's Wheel turning. All souls were prisoners, trapped in the pointless round of existence, leading distracted, blunted lives until death returned them - always in ignorance - to the Wheel.

In other words, all of Nosgoth's people throughout history were merely grist for the Elder God's mill and, conveniently, the Elder God is a spectral being and thus not constrained by time itself. Therefore, He can both feed off their souls while also re-spinning them back into re-existance simultaneously, giving Him an endless supply of nourishment without the threat of pesky things such as reality or free will ever toppling His carefully constructed time-loop gravy train for, by pulling Moebius The Time-Streamer's puppet strings, both free will and reality have been rendered as moot as an illusion.

In that regard, the giant Elder false God is the Leviathan of Nosgoth much like the great industrial military complex is the Leviathan of Washington D.C. The difference being we aren't ignorant of its machinations. Vietnam and Iraq made sure of that. Nor do the souls consumed by it get re-spun into existance. Again, Vietnam and Iraq is proof of that.

But even despite our knowledge to the true nature of America's own Leviathan deeply rooted at the heart of the Pentagon itself where its sinuous tentacles stretch to include the White House, Congress, The Senate, Wall Street, our churches, and just about every household in this country with its far-from-altruistic influence, we either prostrate ourselves before it in blind willing subserviance or are cajoled to do so against our will by our very "leaders" until we're broken and defeated (or mollified with an SUV or misguided by false religious zeal).

Thus, we merely make a prophet out of Dr. Gerry Lower:

We have come full circle only to see ourselves from beneath and behind ... and it is not a very pretty sight ...

It's not a pretty sight because, by coming full circle to see ourselves from beneath and behind much like our forefathers witnessed with European colonialism, we've no choice but to realize -- just like Kain and Raziel themselves did within the make-believe video game realm of Nosgoth -- that we are ultimately just as naked as the Chimporer himself and all his subjects. The sad irony? At least Kain and Raziel eventually break the monotony. At least, to a degree where hope manifests itself within Nosgoth for the first time in aeons and may not entirely be an illusion.

Our monotony has yet to be broken and may never will ...



-------------------------------------

Wars and rumors
Of wars no one knows what for
Toys and soldiers
Deployed on some foreign shore
Lords and rulers
Destroy diplomatic rapport
Communists, dictatorships
Democracies, hypocrisies
Ask not what your country can do
To a one world governmental zoo ...

Extreme
"Politicalamity"
1992

posted by Sizemore at 8:11 PM | 1 comment(s)

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And Yet Another Kick In Cohen's Ass

Three words for you - William Rivers Pitt:

You speak of the angry mob because you got slapped around via email, but your characterization of the anti-war crowd tells me you have not spent a single moment out in the streets with them. I have. I have covered dozens of protests, large and small, in cities all across this country before and after the invasion of Iraq. Millions upon millions of Americans participated in these, and never once, not one time, was a rock thrown.

No violence was offered anywhere, unless it was violence offered to old ladies by riot-garbed police, as was evidenced in Portland several years ago. I have the photographs to prove it. If you want to see anger, enjoy this picture of a 60-year-old woman holding an anti-war sign while being placed in a hammer-lock by a riot cop.

"The hatred is back," you say, as if such hatred is beyond justification. It is interesting that you make so many allusions to Vietnam; the comparison is apt, yet not on point. This is not a situation of "Then" and "Now," but "Then" and "Again." The two issues are joined by a common theme: official malfeasance, presidential lies, administrative fear-mongering and horrific body counts in a faraway land. The lesson of Vietnam was so searing, many believed, that it would never have to be learned again.

Why the anger? Because that lesson didn't take, at least with this crowd. Why the anger? Because millions of people are staggered by the idea that, yes Virginia, we have to go through this again. We have to watch soldiers slaughter and be slaughtered for reasons that bear no markings of truth. We have to watch the reputation of this great nation be savaged. We have to watch as our leaders lie to us with their bare faces hanging out.

Why the anger? It can be summed up in one run-on sentence: We have lost two towers in New York, a part of the Pentagon, an important American city called New Orleans, our economic solvency, our global reputation, our moral authority, our children's future, we have lost tens of thousands of American soldiers to death and grievous injury, we must endure the Abramoffs and the Cunninghams and the Libbys and the whores and the bribes and the utter corruption, we must contemplate the staggering depth of the hole we have been hurled down into, and we expect little to no help from the mainstream DC press, whose lazy go-along-to-get-along cocktail-circuit mentality allowed so much of this to happen because they failed comprehensively to DO THEIR JOB. (emphesis mine)

I'll add the following run on sentence that's sure to make all the CEOs of the top multinational corporations quake in their golf shoes: Between now and 2013 -- despite the efforts of every corrupt and complacent sonoafbitch in Washington D.C. today cashing in every single solitary political, personal, or sexual favor they've amassed during this Administration's belligerence upon the people in order to stop it all -- the Fairness Doctrine will be reinstated, the 1996 Deregulation Act will be repealed, and the filthy, Godless, fake Christian, Republican rich (and some Democratic rich) will be paying immensely to provide any and all ammount of welfare entitlements for the poor, welfare entitlements to the elderly, welfare entitlements to the people of New Orleans, welfare entitlements to the physically or mentally broken soldiers that manage to come home intact from George W. Hitler's middle-east misadventure (fuck Godwin - he didn't sign the Constitution), and it will happen either by ballots (after the people forcibly re-insert the Democratic Party's spinal collumn over the next few years), or by the people's passion for good old fashioned bullets and shoe leather.

It will happen simply because the people are tired of greasing their squeaky wheels and will be more apt to replace them over and over again until they get a wheel that doesn't squeak. It'll happen simply because there'll still be too many angry unwashed faces by then ... and still not enough birdshot.

(A Twirl Of The Tinhat To: Gordon)

posted by Sizemore at 4:22 PM | 0 comment(s)

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How Media Consultants Rob The People

Walt Shapiro has an enraging article up at Salon that pulls back the curtain, showing us exactly where the brunt of the political campaign ducats go. If you're not a registered Salon Premium member, consider doing so as they're one of the better online media outlets out there. However, if you're not a Premium member, Salon will kick a free site pass to you after watching a brief Flash ad. Here's a snippet:

These days, in a typical hotly contested House race, the media consulting firm will get between 10 percent and 15 percent of the total television ad buy, full reimbursement of production costs, maybe a post-election "victory bonus" and sometimes a $3,000-a-month consulting fee. To convey a sense of how perplexing this all is (especially to the campaign managers who negotiate the contracts), the consultant's percentage fee is calculated based on the TV stations' posted ad rates (the inflated gross) rather than the actual charges (the net). If the prior sentence confuses you, just think Hollywood sleight-of-hand bookkeeping.

What does all this mean to you as a campaign donor? If a congressional candidate budgets, say, $1.5 million for television, less than $1.3 million will be spent on airtime and production costs. The rest (imagine your money with little wings on it flying out the window) goes directly into what might be called the image-maker's beach-house fund.

Let me guess: your words were to the effect of "good" and "Christ" with a choice expletive?

Same here ... and my choice expletive was "Fucking".

posted by Sizemore at 9:46 PM | 0 comment(s)

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WaPo's Cohen And Howell Share Same Cerebrum

What a complete damned tool:

The e-mails pulse in my queue, emanating raw hatred. This spells trouble -- not for Bush or, in 2008, the next GOP presidential candidate, but for Democrats. The anger festering on the Democratic left will be taken out on the Democratic middle. (Watch out, Hillary!)

Cohen might be right about the Democratic left getting their rock throwing arm ready to bust open some skulls within our Democratic middle, especially as the next few months wear on (at least, that's the way I see it now that Aravosis recently asked the "Do We Shut Up Now" question). But, what totally ticks me off about this is the flagant tossing about of Hillary Clinton's name. Don't you just love how the mainsteam media and their worthless pundits get to decide way ahead of time who is going to run and who isn't? To Cohen, Hillary has not only tossed her hat in a Presidential race that's still two years down the road but has also walked away with the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries already -- long before Diebold's cronies have a chance to blink. It's as if out voting is but a mere formality to confirm the sanctimony of Cohen and all the rest of Carnacs within the MSM.

I have seen this anger before -- back in the Vietnam War era. That's when the antiwar wing of the Democratic Party helped elect Richard Nixon. In this way, they managed to prolong the very war they so hated.

Hate to piss in Cohen's fruitloops but that won't be happening again. Why? Because no ammount of spin and redefinition of the Iraq clusterfuck on the part of the GOP can save their asses this November or two Novembers from now for the simple fact that this war has two contexts that won't allow it -- Vietnam itself and "ownership society". Granted, the GOP can argue that the Democrats voted for the War, too, just like they trout out Bill Clinton supporting the notion of WMDs in Iraq but all that shit has been rendered inoperative. Of course, "inoperative" is one of the many "Journalistically Correct" synonyms for "LIE" ...

The hatred is back. I know it's only words now appearing on my computer screen ...

Proof positive Cohen needs to get out more, specifically out of the D.C. city limits ...

... but the words are so angry, so roiled with rage, that they are the functional equivalent of rocks once so furiously hurled during antiwar demonstrations. I can appreciate some of it. Institution after institution failed America -- the presidency, Congress and the press.

And since Cohen is a member of the press, he's a failure right alongside them.

They all endorsed a war to rid Iraq of what it did not have. Now, though, that gullibility is being matched by war critics who are so hyped on their own sanctimony that they will obliterate distinctions, punishing their friends for apostasy and, by so doing, aiding their enemies.

No, our Democrats endorsed a war to rid themselves of being tarred and feathered as "siding with the enemy" or "hating America" or "not supporting our troops" or whatever empty platitude the gibbering ghouls that control all of Washington and the mainstream media could sucker the people with. What alot of good it did -- whenever Joe Klein isn't doing their dirty work for them, the Republicans to this day continue the same old and tired slime attacks and Cohen here just proves that he, like WaPo "ombudsman" Howell, are their complicit enablers. A round of applause is in order for demonstrating yet again just how well it pays to be connected to the GOP -- by wallet and by brainstem.

posted by Sizemore at 9:34 PM | 0 comment(s)

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The Clintons Are Kissing Up To Murdoch

Hope you got something near your computer to hurl into:

Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media mogul whose New York Post tabloid savaged Hillary Clinton's initial aspirations to become a US senator for New York, has agreed to host a political fundraiser for her re-election campaign.

The decision reflects an assiduous courtship by Mrs Clinton and former President Bill Clinton. Last month Mrs. Clinton surprised Washington by attending the "Fox News Sunday" 10th anniversary party, where she chatted with Mr. Murdoch.

Mr. Clinton has encouraged Mr Murdoch's involvement with his Global Initiative and has invited him to speak again at the second forum in September. The former president will also address News Corp's summer conference.

This should blast apart any remaining notions that the American people actually get to pick the candidates ...

posted by Sizemore at 7:46 PM | 0 comment(s)

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From The "You've Got To Be Shitting Me" Department

Ezra Klein just scared the shit out of me just for being the messenger:

You just can't make this stuff up. George W. Bush reportedly wants to start a think tank once he leaves office, dedicated to "the spread of democracy and Alexis de Tocqueville's vision of America as a nation made better by its "associations," or community groups."

Oh, this is so worthy of unmitigated snark without even touching Alexis de Tocqueville: the idea that President Bush -- a man who has offered not even the slightest whit of logical thought to anyone since the days he was scourching the earth during Kindergarten recess -- can be sooooo damned self-righteous to believe he can actually start a think tank?!?

But, who am I to argue with The Decider? If he decides he can start a think tank, the best I can do is offer up a good name for it: The Foundation For Southern Comfort And Strategery. I think it fits perfectly and I can actually picture Dubya swaggering through the halls of his think tank hand-in-neck with another "W": Johnnie Walker. The red bottle, too. Certainly not the black. Why would he want to drink whiskey labeled in the opposite color he left the U.S. Treasury?

posted by Sizemore at 12:14 PM | 0 comment(s)

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The MSM Doesn't Get Mad - They Get Even!!

Read it and weep:

This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner C-SPAN because its content was used without permission.

What happened there?

Simple: the above link to YouTube previously offered a decent quality rip of Stephen Colbert's roasting of the Bush Administration and the MSM. Alas, it's not there anymore because C-SPAN had sicced their legal beagles on YouTube because the video was posted without legal permission. Hence the reason why John Amato might want to lawyer up because if C-SPAN's lawyers can scare the shit out of YouTube waving their "Forever Employment Act" (read: The DMCA), then nothing is stopping the corporate crooks and liars from FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, etc. from trying to shut down the top video blog devoted to exposing them and their outsourced employees from the Republican and Democratic Parties on the Hill.

posted by Sizemore at 5:30 PM | 1 comment(s)

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Got A Yarn To Weave

DAMNED SONSABITCHES:

The Iraq war has been the war fought on the cheap - not enough body armor, not enough armor on vehicles, not enough night vision equipment.

It has been the war in which packages from back home have had to fill some crucial needs.

Now, we have chow call at the Greenwood Credit Union in Warwick, R.I. It's the latest in home-front intervention. It's partially in response to the unthinkable image of U.S. Marines approaching Iraqi citizens and asking for food because they do not have enough.

There's a big barrel in the lobby of the credit union on Post Road in Warwick. It's decorated with ribbons and it's there because Karen Boucher-Andoscia's son, Nick Andoscia, called and asked his mother to send food.

Nick's a Marine corporal. He was in Afghanistan last year, where there was enough to eat. He's in Iraq now even though his enlistment was up last year.

He's one of those Marines who can't walk away. His unit, the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Marines, was headed for Iraq and he just couldn't head for civilian life while those he had served with were heading to their second war.

"He extended," says Karen. "He told me, 'I really have to go. I can't let my guys go alone.' "

There are a lot of stories like that. We don't hear them much. They're kind of personal.

So Nick Andoscia went to Iraq. And hunger soon followed.

"I got a letter," says Karen. "And he had called me before that. He said, 'Send lots of tuna.' "

Nick told his mother that he and the men in his unit were all about 10 pounds lighter in their first few weeks in Iraq. They were pulling 22-hour patrol shifts. They were getting two meals a day and they were not meals to remember.

"He told me the two meals just weren't cutting it. He said the Iraqi food was usually better. They were going to the Iraqis and basically saying, 'feed me.' "

...

Nick Andoscia, who is 22, is due to come home later this year. He wants to study criminal justice, his mother says, then go to work for a fire or police department.

But for the next few months he will be on patrol in western Iraq, dealing with the heat and the dirt and the danger.

The last thing he should have to worry about is an empty stomach. The last thing he should have to do is approach Iraqis and ask for food.

You have to wonder what the gracious hosts must think when a fighting man from the richest country on earth comes to their door in search of something to eat.

A story like this is not just an open condemnation of Bush, Cheney, and every $1,000-a-plate dinner eating motherfucker in Washington D.C. regardless if they're a Republican or a Democ-erm, I mean, an Other Republican. It's also not just an open condemnation of the well-paid prima donna pinhead TelePrompter readers that sanctimoniously pass themselves off as actual journalists. What it really is is part and parcel why I've been relatively silent in blogging the last few weeks: an open condemnation of SOCIETY.

I mean, for fuck's sake, it not only implies the following notion but champions it and then bludgeons us all over the goddamned head with it: in the same week that Dick Cheney was busy salting every cubic side of bitesized steak, while Stephen Colbert was roasting the hell out of the media and the politicians, and while a half-dozen A-List liberal bloggers were busy trying to catapult another A-List liberal blogger's book to the #1 spot on Amazon, we've got Marines in Iraq scrounging for a fuckin' peach pit.

Mind you, the above took place in the same week where ...



... legal and illegal Mexicans said, "Fuck you, Senor, we're not working today!" and instead put their feet in the street carryings signs, obstructing traffic, and raising hell. They empowered themselves like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Susan B. Anthony did long before them and their activism knew no financial or social bounds. In other words, they're taking a hit in the ol' meager paycheck as it is to not work and instead pound the streets to defend their principals and the amazing thing is ONE large ooops by the Republicans was responsible for it. It's embarrassing considering a SLEW of large ooopsies by not just the ReThugs but the Dems as well has not put the collective audiences of AmericaBlog, DailyKos, Atrios, FDL, and Crooks And Liars out in the streets, too, and I've been sittting here for the last few weeks -- as quiet as a church mouse, as peniless as a Katrina victim, and as powerless as Maryscott O'Connor screaming from a Log Cabin Republican rooftop -- and say to myself, "Wow."

Wow.

And when I say "Wow", I'm not talking "World Of WarCraft".

I'm talking "wow" as in ... well, maybe I'll just write a book about it and see if the above named blogs will catapult it to #1 on Amazon, too. I doubt they will once they discover the plot: a group of young but pissed off American men and women get so disgusted with their country and the mainstream media that take matters in their own hands by launching blogs but soon discover there's a mint to be made from their readers by simply marketing and distributing a meme of "neo-activism" which, by some fluke, they influence politics to such a degree that the former crooks either get impeached or tossed into the Hague, every citizen gets public health care, a decent paying job, and the right to marry whoever they want when they want. But all is soon not well as the group of young men and women (whom by then have since replaced the old guard media heads they loathed so much and collect salaries twice as larger) get older and then senile as success and an over-inflated sense of their own self-worth starts making them believe in crazy shit they blasted in their salad days like extreme fundamentalist religion and political think-tanks. Their new found sanctimony and elitist snobbery starts pissing off another young group of American men and women so disgusted with them and their country that they take matters into their ...

In other words, NON-FICTION. Well, maybe except for that universal health care, gay marriage, and impeachment/The Hague stuff. That's gonna remain fiction for quiet some time in the near future. It's for that reason, I've picked a wonderful and appropriate title for the yarn that's uh really catchy. Just rolls right off the tongue.

It'll be called "They Suck ... But We Swallow!"

Because if that isn't the truth, then I don't know what is anymore.

(Hat Tips: Alternate Brain and "Misty" at Ms. Shakes)

posted by Sizemore at 10:43 AM | 1 comment(s)

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Shake's Question Of The Day

posted by Sizemore at 2:56 AM | 0 comment(s)

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