Who’s Crazy Now?

But now those harsh critics have been vindicated. And it turns out that many of the administration supporters can’t handle the truth. They won’t admit that they built a personality cult around a man who has proved almost pathetically unequal to the job. Nor will they admit that opponents of the Iraq war, whom they called traitors for warning that invading Iraq was a mistake, have been proved right. So they have taken refuge in the belief that a vast conspiracy of America-haters in the media is hiding the good news from the public.

Unlike the crazy conspiracy theories of the left — which do exist, but are supported only by a tiny fringe — the crazy conspiracy theories of the right are supported by important people: powerful politicians, television personalities with large audiences. And we can safely predict that these people will never concede that they were wrong. When the Iraq venture comes to a bad end, they won’t blame those who led us into the quagmire; they’ll claim that it was all the fault of the liberal media, which stabbed our troops in the back.

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As multiple bands refused big money from Hummer.

The Thermals, a rambunctious rock band from Portland, Ore., were en route between gigs last year when they got a phone call from their label, Sub Pop. Hummer wanted to pay them $50,000 for the right to use their song “It’s Trivia” in a commercial.

Trans Am, an electronic rock band from Washington, spurned $180,000 in ad money from Hummer.

“We thought about it for about 15 seconds, maybe,” lead singer Hutch Harris said.

They said no.

Washington D.C.’s Trans Am were offered $180,000 by Hummer for the song “Total Information Awareness.”

“We figured it was almost like giving music to the Army, or Exxon,” guitarist Philip Manley said.

They said no.

The post-punk band LiLiPUT, who broke up more than 20 years ago, could have pocketed $50,000 for “Heidi’s Head” after making close to nothing during their five-year existence. But they, too, said no.

“At least I can sleep without nightmares,” Marlene Marder reasoned.

I’m sure their managers were livid. Do you know how hard it is to turn down that kind of money when you’re an indie band playing shitty bars in nowhere towns? I admire that kind of commitment to principle.

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I like it. Giving Pat Robertson a taste of what Theocracy is all about, the Israeli Government pulled out of a deal with the Mega-Prophet to provide 35 acres of free land and supporting infrasturcture to build a Christian Heritage Center in Galilee. The Israeli’s noted that they weren’t going to do business with an asshole who thinks God struck down their Prime Minister with a stroke, and a former Prime Minister by assassination.

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Every now and and then, the voters of some jurisdiction do something that brings a faint smile to my face. In this case, I was pleased to finally see the voters in my birth state send a message to those fanatics in the Kompassionate Konservative Kristian movement.

In Dover, Pennsylvania, where the Board of Education voted to change the Biology curriculum to require teaching Intelligent design, ALL EIGHT of the board members who were up for re-election were DEFEATED by challengers who campaigned against the incumbents on separation of church and state issues. The remaining member of the nine member board was not up for re-election.

The board instituted the teaching of Intellegent design in 2004 by a 6-3 vote of the members at the time. Two of the dissenting board members were so infuriated by the vote that they resigned their positions in protest and were replaced by ID supporters. A group of parents filed suit to stop the teaching of ID. The school board was being Aided and abetted by the Seattle based Discovery Institute. It is unclear at this time what the regime change will do to the court case, but this feels good.

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The (entirely GOP) Dover school board was pushing an “intelligent design” policy. Today, the voters had a chance to tell them what they thought about that policy.

The old board? Is gone. Every stinkin last one of them.

Hahahahaaa! I haven’t felt this good since I heard Voldemort had her car broken into.

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This is Roger Greenwald’s expose on Wal-Mart (he has previosly done exposes on Faux news (Outfoxed), the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq (Uncovered), and the attack on our civil liberties (Unconstitutional). This promises to be good. Low-budget, but good (if incomplete or not broad enough for my tastes. I mean, they do what they can with what they have, but it’s obviously a shoestring operation. That’s all they can get with The Man keeping them down)

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Want to refute any and all creationist/ID claims and how their faith should be taught coequally with what we in the real world call science? Well, here’s your index.

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What I’d like to see in America, a return to a government for the people, not just Big business.
John Edward’s speech today outlines his New American Initiative to combat the rise in poverty in America.

We have all seen the images from the wreckage of Katrina – people packed into the Superdome and convention center with only the clothes on their backs. And we’ve all asked what brought them there. Many things did, but one of them was poverty.

Widespread poverty existed before Katrina and it will persist after the Gulf region is rebuilt, if we let the images that we have watched on the news fade from our memories as they fade from our television screens.

But today we have a historic opportunity. We do not have to live in an America that accepts poverty as a fact of life or chooses to ignore it. The day after Katrina hit, new government statistics showed that 37 million Americans live in poverty, up for the fourth year in a row.

The first test of the working society will be in the Gulf. And the central principle of our effort should be the one I just outlined: We can only renew the Gulf if we renew the lives of the Gulf’s people by encouraging and honoring work.

The President doesn’t get that. At a time when a million people have been displaced, many already poor before the storm; when the only shot many people have is a good job rebuilding New Orleans, the President intervened to suspend prevailing wage laws so his contractor friends can cut wages for a hard day’s work.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the President never suggested cutting million-dollar salaries for the heads of Halliburton or the other companies profiting from these contracts. A President who never met an earmark he wouldn’t approve or a millionaire tax cut he wouldn’t promote decided to slash wages for the least of us.

Seventy-five years ago, our government was led by a President who actually succeeded in navigating America through a disaster. Faced with the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt saw that relief requires more than food and shelter; it requires the dignity that comes from a job at a decent wage. And he saw something else: as Allida Black put it at a forum here last week, we have to “build to last.”

Many of our children still go to schools that the WPA constructed; many of our homes are lighted because of dams that the PWA built; many of our families still hike on trails that his CCC blazed. That’s why trailer parks are not the answer.

In fact, if we know anything from a half century of urban development, it is that concentrating poor people close to each other and away from jobs is a lousy idea. If the Great Depression brought forth Hoovervilles, these trailer towns may someday be known as Bushvilles.

We can do better. I’ve proposed a New America Initiative based on the principles that FDR and the WPA taught us.

::

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By overriding a veto by Gov. Romney banning even the offer of emergency contraceptive pills.

The state Legislature voted Thursday to override a gubernatorial veto of a measure that will expand access to emergency contraception by requiring hospital emergency room doctors to offer the medication to rape victims.

The measure, which Gov. Mitt Romney vetoed in July, also will make the medication available without a prescription from pharmacies. A provision that exempted Catholic hospitals was eventually dropped from the legislation.

The Senate voted unanimously 37-0 to override the veto. In the House, the vote was 139-16 to override.

Romney said signing the bill would violate his anti-abortion stance. If the pill is offered, there will be fewer abortions, not more.

You know, the more I think about it, I’m wondering why the anti-choice crowd don’t follow their path to its ultimate logical conclusion: rapists who successfully impregnate their victim… a seed carrier brood marewoman shall be honored with the highest accolades, wealth, money, and power this nation can offer. If death is punishable by death, shouldn’t life be rewarded by all that life has to offer?

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CNN sued the government for access to NOLA and other regions affected by Katrina… and the government rolled over like the cowards they are.

Rather than fight a lawsuit by CNN, the federal government abandoned its effort Saturday to prevent the media from reporting on the recovery of the dead in New Orleans.

This quick capitulation shows just how foundless their original attempts to stifle free speech were.

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Gore hires private charters to help Katrina refugees. He also refused to take credit or talk to the press.

Thanks again, Ralph.

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OpEd news has an interview with the guy who told Cheny to go Cheney himself.

Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency room physician who plays in alternative rock bands and does art on the side, needs our help. Since he was the one who told Dick Cheney to “go fuck yourself” on Sept. 8, that’s the least we can do.

Marble is a complex guy, to say the least. Some of the lyrics he writes can be considered harsh by some ? personally what I’ve heard is very much on target - but he has a softer side as an organizer of breast cancer fund-raisers, not to mention an ER doctor.

When he, like thousands of others, lost his home due to Hurricane Katrina last week, it was the single most traumatic week of his life. That led to his Sept. 8 confrontation with the man who best represents the worst of the most callous, heartless, shittiest administration in U.S. history.

As Marble explains, he was driving to his destroyed house Sept. 8 in Gulfport, Ms., when military police refused to allow him to cross a barricade that was about 200 feet from his home. They forced him to drive an extra 20 minutes and spend even more on gasoline.

“Thanks to Dubya Gump and Mr. Cheney, gas is really expensive and extremely hard to get anywhere Katrina has destroyed,” Marble wrote. “So needless to say, I was extremely aggravated that they wouldn’t let me pass.”

Suddenly a long line of dark cars pulled up, and they honked at Marble to back up to let them through the barricade that supposedly no one could drive through. That only made Marble madder so he did what most of us would do ? or at least consider doing.

“I waved a middle finger at the caravan,” Marble wrote…

Right on, bro.

His friend videotaped a little bit longer and then came back to Marble’s house. As they were salvaging a few things from Marble’s home, two military police waving M-16’s showed up and said they were looking
for someone who fit Marble’s description who had cursed at Cheney.

“I told them I was probably the person they were looking for, and so they put me in handcuffs and ‘detained’ me for about 20 minutes or so,” Marble wrote. “My right thumb went numb because the cuffs were on so tight, but they were fairly courteous and eventually released me after getting all my contact info. They said I had NOT broken any laws so I was free to go.”

So let’s get this straight: A physician with a newborn baby loses most everything he owns in the hurricane, does what most of us WANT to do and “echoes” Cheney’s words he spoke on the Senate floor last year, walks away harmlessly, mission accomplished, and then once the media cameras leave, he is treated like a foreign terrorist as Cheney’s goons waving M-16s handcuff him in front of his destroyed home? Had it not been for the media cameras filming the initial scene, I doubt Cheney’s goons would have just let Marble go after 20 minutes.

America, land of the free?

You just knew that part was coming, didn’t you?

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from last night’s Daily Show

Now, for you people who are saying, `Well, stop pointing fingers at the president…left-wing…the media’s being too hard:

No. SHUT…UP! No! This is inarguably—inarguably—a failure of leadership from the top of the federal government.

Remember when Bill Clinton went out with Monica Lewinsky? That was inarguably a failure of judgment at the top. Democrats had to come out and risk losing credibility if they did not condemn Bill Clinton for his behavior. I believe Republicans are in the same position right now. And I will say this: Hurricane Katrina is George Bush’s Monica Lewinsky. The only difference is that tens of thousands of people weren’t stranded in Monica Lewinsky’s vagina.–Jon Stewart
…
Ed Helms: While everybody else is busy setting up commissions and finding fault, through the president’s leadership he’ll end up building a billion dollar dam in Arkansas.
Jon Stewart: Why would he build a dam in Arkansas?
Ed Helms: His plan will be to fight the water there so we don’t have to fight it here.
…
Jon Stewart: So no one’s going to be held accountable for this at all?
Ed Helms: No. In fact, if history is any indication, they’ll be hard-pressed finding enough medals to pin on these guys. My sources tell me the head of FEMA will be dipped in bronze and turned into an award to be given to other officials.

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Hooray for love, hooray for humanity! Cali sucks in ways almost too numerous to mention, but this is fucking cool.

The California Legislature on Tuesday became the first legislative body in the country to allow same-sex marriages, as gay-rights advocates overcame two earlier defeats in the Assembly.

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Of my knowledge, the following countries have offered aid to America to help with Katrina:

Australia, Austria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, China, Columbia, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Greece, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

I have yet to hear this mentioned by any politician (except for shrub refusing the aid) or, really, our media, so I, as an American, would like to say thank you.

Thank you Australia, Austria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, China, Columbia, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Greece, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Thank you all, very much.

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