Transit of Venus - June 8th

Transit of Venus - June 8th

*Thanks to Wilson's Blogmanac for the link/art

Fair and Balanced: The Stupidity of Ronald Reagan - by Christopher Hitchens

Not Even a Hedgehog - The stupidity of Ronald Reagan. By Christopher Hitchens: "Not Even a Hedgehog
The stupidity of Ronald Reagan.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, June 7, 2004, at 10:03 AM PT "

excerpt:


One could go on. I only saw him once up close, which happened to be when he got a question he didn't like. Was it true that his staff in the 1980 debates had stolen President Carter's briefing book? (They had.) The famously genial grin turned into a rictus of senile fury: I was looking at a cruel and stupid lizard. His reply was that maybe his staff had, and maybe they hadn't, but what about the leak of the Pentagon Papers? Thus, a secret theft of presidential documents was equated with the public disclosure of needful information. This was a man never short of a cheap jibe or the sort of falsehood that would, however laughable, buy him some time.

The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump. He could have had anyone in the world to dinner, any night of the week, but took most of his meals on a White House TV tray. He had no friends, only cronies. His children didn't like him all that much. He met his second wife—the one that you remember—because she needed to get off a Hollywood blacklist and he was the man to see. Year in and year out in Washington, I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with such an obvious phony and loon.

Republican Discussion Forum / RDF

Republican Discussion Forum / RDF

Interesting discussion. Join in!

Lying liar, Neil Boortz, caught live on O'Franken Factor

Lying liar, Neil Boortz, caught live on O'Franken Factor

"Abu gah rabe abu gaaa rabe ahb ahb abuuuu gaaaaaah

iddybud: "Abu gah rabe abu gaaa rabe ahb ahb abuuuu gaaaaaah
LMAO!!!!

Oh, please, please listen to this!
*..the first two minutes are all I'm asking!*

Thanks to Iddybud...

Dead Woman Who Accused Bush of Rape - PRAVDA.Ru

Dead Woman Who Accused Bush of Rape - PRAVDA.Ru: "Dead Woman Who Accused Bush of Rape
11/12/2003 16:37
Margie Schoedinger dies as a result of a gunshot wound to the head
Margie Schoedinger, the woman who allegedly filed a lawsuit against George W. Bush in December 2002, claiming that she had been raped, has died of a gunshot wound to the head, registered officially as 'suicide'."

Old news, granted. But interesting, as the corporate media has still maintained a blackout of this story...

Black Woman who accused Bush of Rape-Found Dead

Court Info

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Former President Ronald Reagan Dies at 93

Yahoo! News - Former President Ronald Reagan Dies at 93

What is a Liberal

What is a Liberal?
Of the top of my head I'd say...

We are the keepers of the Grail Code, stewards of the world and it's inhabitants, and protector of the common well, i.e. environment.
We are in the world, but not of it. We are angels hovering above, protecting and healing and spiritualizing.
We are not in awe of people "higher in rank", and do not succumb to the mammonical tendency to treasure material wealth over natural and spiritual and communitarian wealth.
We also treasure education, information, knowledge, wisdom and creativity. We are creative, not reactive.
We stand up for the poor and underprivileged, and are more comfortable among them. We do not wall ourselves off from them.
We know that dull minds think alike, and as such, tend to have more diverse views on all subjects.
We cherish Peace and abhor War. War is Hell, and Peace is Heaven. We thus are more Godly and less Satanly...although we do not wear our religion on our sleeve.

All the greatest humanitarians have been, in essence, Liberal, including Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Lao Tse, and Michael Moore.

We choose love over fear. Life over death. Freedom over domination.

We know that arrogance is a disease that can be cured by a macrobiotic diet, and our music and art is light years ahead of the conservative counterpart.

We tend to wind up in places like Harvard and Berkeley and Chapel Hill, rather than Bob Jones and the laughable Liberty U.

We don't suck at governing. We don't steal, cheat and lie to get our way. We are not "in it" for ourselves. We are here to help.

Correct me if I'm wrong.
-anonyMoses

Gore stand up for America against Bush's rapine and mismanagement

Gore stand up for America against Bush's rapine and mismanagement
Gore: Bush a "moral coward"
EXCERPTS

Former Vice President Al Gore stepped up his slashing attack on President Bush on Friday night, accusing the administration of ruining the economy, destroying the nation's standing with its allies and waging a war in Iraq based on lies and deception.

"Those policies came out of the White House and no matter the wrongdoing of individual troops, they were ordered to wade into a moral cesspool and given ambiguous, conflicting instructions and then praised for doing things they shouldn't have been doing," Gore said. "I believe the abuse of those prisoners came directly from the abuse of the truth in the run-up to the war."

If the United States re-elects Bush, then American citizens share the blame, Gore added.

Bush has "looted" the economy and turned projected multitrillion-dollar surpluses into deep deficits, Gore said.

"In the last three and a half years, this administration has tragically and recklessly squandered our legacy, while the special interest people were advising him behind closed doors," Gore declared.

The Bush administration's "single objective is to help the wealthy and powerful," he said, adding that the president likes to act tough but "whenever he is in the presence of a wealthy contributor, he is a moral coward."

Is Bush going insane? Or is this nothing new?

Is Bush going insane? Or is this nothing new?

EXCERPTS

“It reminds me of the Nixon days,” says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. “Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.”
In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be “God’s will” and then tells aides to “fuck over” anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration.

“We’re at war, there’s no doubt about it. What I don’t know anymore is just who the enemy might be,” says one troubled White House aide. “We seem to spend more time trying to destroy John Kerry than al Qaeda and our enemies list just keeps growing and growing.”

...

"Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and wouldn't hear of it," says an aide. "That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying 'that's it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now."
...

“The Attorney General is tight with the President because of religion,” says one aide. “They both believe any action is justifiable in the name of God.”
But the President who says he rules at the behest of God can also tongue-lash those he perceives as disloyal, calling them “fucking assholes” in front of other staff, berating one cabinet official in front of others and labeling anyone who disagrees with him “unpatriotic” or “anti-American.”

Telling Times: Chalabi, James Bath & the Iraq War

Telling Times: Chalabi, James Bath & the Iraq War

Ahmed Chalabi
James R. Bath
Salem Bin Laden
Osama Bin Laden
George W. Bush

June 1977
June: After a failed attempt to win a US congressional seat, George W. Bush sets up his own oil firm, Arbusto Oil in the same Midland, Texas Petroleum Oil building that his father used to work from. One of his backers is James Bath, a Houston aircraft broker who represents bin Laden family interests in the US. Salem bin Laden, eldest of the bin Laden sons, is another major partner in the firm. Salem bin Laden will die in an unexplained flying accident near San Antonio in 1988. The 50 investors who put up $4.7 million to start up the company are, in Bush's words, "mainly friends of my uncle" who "did pretty good," although they lost most of the money they invested in the company. Jonathan Bush, George W.'s uncle, raises money for Arbusto from political supporters of the Reagan-Bush administration. The time is not propitious for startup oil companies; many quickly die off, but Arbusto stays afloat due to large cash contributions from family connections and international contributors interested in building relations with the Bush family. (In These Times, Project Censored, Consortium News, Bushwatch, American Free Press/Killtown)

December 1979
George W. Bush's Arbusto Oil receives $50,000 from James Bath, a close family friend who is also the sole US business representative for Salem bin Laden. It is suspected that the money came directly from the bin Laden family, but efforts to conceal this connection are successful, so no proof is forthcoming. After 9/11, the Bush administration harshly denied any connection to the bin Laden family. Bush first stated that he didn't know Bath at all, then backtracked and admitted that he knew Bath well and was aware of his ties to the bin Ladens. Bath also has deep ties to BCCI, the scandal-plagued Arabic bank with ties to terrorists, drug trafficking, and arms dealing. (In These Times, Project Censored, Killtown)

August 1988
Salem bin Laden dies. His business interests are inherited by Khalid bin Mahfouz, a powerful Saudi financial figure and BCCI partner. Bush family friend James Bath runs a business for Mahfouz in Houston, and joins a business partnership with Mahfouz and BCCI frontman Gaith Pharoun in Houston's Main Bank. (In These Times, Bushwatch)

June 1992
June 4: The FBI is purported to be investigating the connections between George W. Bush and James Bath. Bath was Salem bin Laden's official representative in the US, and is intimately connected with bin Laden's financial successor, Khaled bin Mahfouz, who is now known to be a prime source of Al-Qaeda funding. Bath, and by inference bin Mahfouz, are accused of funneling money to the Reagan and Bush administrations in order to influence American foreign policy. Allegations of the bin Laden family's attempt to influence President Bush through his son are made, but before proof can be collected, the investigation is quietly throttled. (CCR, Project Censored)

1992-2001
Following Bush's executive order of mid-1991 ordering the deposal of Saddam Hussein, the Rendon Group, a public relations firm with extensive experience working in Iraq for the CIA and the Pentagon, organizes the Iraqi National Congress as an eventual replacement for the Hussein regime. The head of the firm, John Rendon, gives the INC its name, coordinates its strategy sessions, lines up meetings with powerful GOP officials, and channels $12 million in covert CIA funds to the new group. In October 1992, Rendon names Ahmed Chalabi as the head of the INC. (Chalabi left Jordan in 1989 in the trunk of a car after a bank he ran collapsed; he was subsequently charged in absentia with embezzlement and sentenced to 22 years in prison.) Internal dissension all but destroys the group and ruins Chalabi's reputation with US intelligence. After Clinton's election, the US ceases supporting the INC and helps form its own opposition group, the Iraqi National Accord (INA). Both groups are severely damaged when Hussein's internal police captures and executes many members of both groups. Chalabi, dubbed by many a "limousine insurgent" who draws "more support on the Potomac than the Euphrates," according to one Middle East expert, continues to be trusted and wooed by Pentagon and other neoconservatives, some of whom privately dub him the "George Washington of Iraq." In 1997, Chalabi's fortunes improve when many of his Washington supporters form the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which advocates the overthrow of Hussein and Chalabi taking his place as Iraq's leader. "Were it not for Rendon," a State Department official later reflected, "the Chalabi group wouldn't even be on the map." Nine days after the 9/11 attacks, the PNAC sends a letter to President G.W. Bush advocating not only the destruction of al-Qaeda, but the overthrow of Hussein as well as measures to be taken against the governments of Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine. (In These Times, Asia Times)

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Back-door Bush creates "Back-door draft", abusing American soldiers' freedom and liberty

Back-door Bush creates "Back-door draft", abusing American soldiers' freedom and liberty
"I'm a back-door man!"

The funny little man who first entered our White House through the back door, butled in by a white man called Scotus, has now found a way to expand the back-door to include our fine men and women who are living up to their contracts in our fine Military edifice. But while they are living up to their ends of the bargain...the goalpost keeps getting farther and farther away.

These good people are, in essence, being drafted back into the Military quite beyond their control. John Kerry has aptly named this phenomemon, a "back-door draft"...a term I feel sure will find a thousand tongues.

It is bad enough to have to fight an unnecessary war, and kill or be killed by people with whom there should be no gripe...in the case of most Iraqis. But to have to keep doing long beyond the time you thought you'd be done! Is this not a form of torture?

As I have stated in previous catechisms, the soldier's fate is worse than that of a slave AND a prisoner. And now to rub salt into their gaping wounds...

Here's a better idea. Bring them home. Right now. Give them massive sums of money, if they behaved honorably, and let them return to their families...who, after all, need them.

Their life is more important than someone else's death.

You are pro-life, aren't you?

Kerry says Nuclear. Bush says Nucular. Who is the dummy?

Kerry says Nuclear. Bush says Nucular. Who is the dummy?Kerry also speaks scriptlessly, unlike the Dummy.

John Kerry was talking about Nuclear threats today. Yes, that's right. Nuclear. Not that garble Bush keeps kecking. And when they debate the issue...a more risible time can ahardly be imagined.

Kerry should continue to speak scriptlessly. Bush simply cannot compete. He is, yes, incompetent.

How Bushies Really "Think". Enron laughs as California Burns

How Bushies Really "Think". Enron laughs as California Burns

Learn how filthy rotten these scum really are...
EXCERPT:

(CBS) When a forest fire shut down a major transmission line into California, cutting power supplies and raising prices, Enron energy traders celebrated, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports.

"Burn, baby, burn. That's a beautiful thing," a trader sang about the massive fire.

Four years after California's disastrous experiment with energy deregulation, Enron energy traders can be heard – on audiotapes obtained by CBS News – gloating and praising each other as they helped bring on, and cash-in on, the Western power crisis.

"He just f-cks California," says one Enron employee. "He steals money from California to the tune of about a million."
"Will you rephrase that?" asks a second employee.

"OK, he, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day," replies the first.

The tapes, from Enron's West Coast trading desk, also confirm what CBS reported years ago: that in secret deals with power producers, traders deliberately drove up prices by ordering power plants shut down.

...
...

"This is the evidence we've all been waiting for. This proves they manipulated the market," said Eric Christensen, a spokesman for the utility.

That utility, like many others, is trying to get its money back from Enron.

"They're f-cking taking all the money back from you guys?" complains an Enron employee on the tapes. "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"

"Yeah, grandma Millie, man"
"Yeah, now she wants her f-cking money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her arsehol- for f-cking $250 a megawatt hour."

And the tapes appear to link top Enron officials Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling to schemes that fueled the crisis.

*Slightly edited by yours truly. Bold, italics, and changing "f-----g" to "f-cking" (for those with an inability to fill in blanks.)

Edwards working the hardest for Kerry

Edwards working the hardest for Kerry

"It's unclear who the favorite is within the Kerry campaign, but Edwards, a lame-duck senator, has been lapping all of the others in terms of travel time campaigning for Democrats and popularity with voters. Since March, he's been to Colorado, Illinois, North Dakota, Washington state, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Minnesota and Ohio. Coming up this month: Texas, Louisiana, Iowa and another stop in Florida."

Josh Marshall exposes David Brooks' BS

Josh Marshall exposes David Brooks' BS
EXCERPT
The signs of economic downturn the country faced in the spring of 2001 weren't the reason the Bush White House pushed through such massive tax cuts. They were simply a convenient rationale the White House chose for a policy embraced for entirely different reasons.

The evidence for this claim is, I think, inescapable.

The Bush tax cut was passed in the spring of 2001. But the policy was promulgated more than a year earlier, at the beginning of December 1999 -- long before the warnings signs Brooks mentions appeared, and while the dot.com bubble had yet to burst.

Virtual Bohemia : Liberal TV has arrived!

Virtual Bohemia : Liberal TV has arrived!

This summer, we at anonyMoses Research & Humor Labs will be covering a host of new and indelible topics.

Here is a preview of our Summer offering:

Click here for show descriptions.


DOCUMENTARY SPECIALS
-Telling Times: All the news that's shit to print
-Up From The Bog: The Tom Delay Story
-Conservative in Bed: a study in necrophilia
-Is your husband...conservative? Help is on the way!
-Achieving Nevada: ...Stays in the White House
-At Night We Shine: Bootblacks in Tandem

ALSO:
The Clinton Biographies
The Clinton Biographies, Part One: "Jefferson"
The Clinton Biographies, Part Two: "Johnson"
The Clinton Biographies, Part Three: "el BJ"

SHOWS
-Carpe Noctem
-Time Invaders
-Bleak Condo
-Apes in Costume
-alt.primetime
-Arnold the Robopig
-Tobacco Company Execs
-Advanced Tones of Voice
-Life After Money
-Green Witch Village
-Bobbies
-Seeing Godot Out
-Inane Platitudes from the Deep
-Taboo Quest
-Freud's Banana
-Imperfect Weekend
-Food Chain Gang
-Corporate Busing
-Earth Muffin
-Ricecakes of Men
-Rapid Ear Movement
-Pick-up to Paradise
-Killer Mules of Tokyo
-Idea Management 101
-United States of Earth
-Vehement Behemoth
-Unusual Hair Parts
-Sexual in your Window
-Look Away if You Want Sex
-2 Ways Air Escapes the Body
-Undoing the Hydrant
-Sleep Smiling
-Relatively Cute SwampThang
-The Fastest Way to Bathe
-The New Way to Kiss
-Avant-Garde Lovemaking
-Horse Operas to Adore & Obey
-History of Mentalities
-You are what you upload
-When the Waldoes Emerge
-A Million Years Ago Today
-We Fit Together Like Dogs
-Dreams Are for Sissies
-A Glacier in Hell
-Finnegan's Wake For Cats
-Being-for-Itself Meets Godzilla
-The Horripilation

Pushing War is Bad Journalism : The New York Times Confesses

Pushing War is Bad Journalism : The New York Times Confesses


NEW YORK (AFP) - Institutional failures, not individual ones, allowed the New York Times' pre-Iraq (news - web sites) war coverage to be manipulated by people bent on pushing the United States into war, the paper's ombudsman said.
"Some of The Times's coverage in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq was credulous; much of it was inappropriately italicized by lavish front-page display and heavy-breathing headlines," Public Editor Daniel Okrent said in the paper's Sunday issue.
"The Times's flawed journalism continued in the weeks after the war began, when writers might have broken free from the cloaked government sources who had insinuated themselves and their agendas into the pre-war coverage," Okrent said.

Doonesbury: In Memoriam

Doonesbury : In Memoriam...

Kafkaesque Creative Non-fiction by Maud Newton

Kafkaesque Creative Non-fiction by Maud Newton

"The Thing in My Pants"

Note the publishing possibilities at Eyeshot...