Too much web surfing at work? Surf the web and find out why!

An astute co-worker sent me this today. Yahoo is featuring this article on their front door:

Find another job......maybe one that is more understanding about how much time you spend surfing the web during work hours?

Speech as a crime

Mardin Amin, trying to avoid embarrassment during an airport security checkpoint identified an unusual object in one of his carry-on bags by whispering "pump" to the TSA agent. The agent swears that he "clearly" said "bomb".

A Cook County judge has decided there is enough evidence to prosecute a man who says an airport security guard misheard him when she thought he said that a sexual device in his backpack was actually a bomb.

Mardin Amin claims he actually told the guard the small, black object was a "pump" - as in a penis pump.

And if you're a television broadcasting company, do not dare to broadcast Hezbollah TV. Government agents will shut you down, steal all of your money and charge you with terrorism.

US authorities have arrested a New York man for locally broadcasting Hezbollah television al-Manar, which the US Treasury Department has designated a terrorist entity.

Javed Iqbal, 42, was arrested because his Brooklyn-based company HDTV Ltd was providing New York-area customers with the Hezbollah-operated channel, US federal prosecutors said in a statement.

The US Treasury Department froze US assets of al-Manar in March, saying it supported fund-raising and recruitment activities of Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group backed by Syria and Iran that has been at war with Israel in southern Lebanon.

America, what a country.

Government Is Bad Medicine For What Ails Us

Whenever I discuss politics with statists, the argument eventually ends up with the statist asking me when libertarianism has ever worked historically. My first answer is usually, "The US shortly after the revolution."

Statists don't like that answer. Their view is that people cannot be responsible for themselves. The libertarian/anarchist point of view is that they can and generally are responsible and are capable of governing themselves. But like me, ancaps and libertarians are always asked to provide examples of "civilized" people governing themselves. The question is a logical fallacy akin to "When did you stop beating your wife?" A circular argument that assumes government is itself the dividing line between civilized and uncivilized people.

It is time for libertarians to stop resorting to defense. Our position can be defended, but it is becoming clear that this is hardly necessary given history and recent events.

Lebanon

Take the recent dust up between Hezbollah and Israel for example. For at least 24 years, Israel has been occupying Lebanon. July 12th was not the beginning - nor will it likely be the end - of the dispute between the two countries. It is the aftermath of the latest hostilities that gives us a view of the vast differences between the libertarian and the statist.

Those who claim that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and that it has some sort of stranglehold over Lebanese government do so with an obvious agenda. This point of view also demonstrates a severe ignorance on the part of the claimant, a fact if we provide superlative generosity as to their motivations.

As Lebanon attempts to return itself to "normal", we find it is the private sector, namely Hezbollah, which has turned out to repair the various communities inside Lebanon devastated by US-made planes, guns, artillary and bombs.

"There is no government here," said an agitated Abdul Muhsen Husseini, president of the Union of Municipalities in the Tyre region — the man who is supposed to be in charge — as he handled requests from a stream of petitioners asking for money to buy medicine and what to do with the dead.

"We asked the government in Beirut to accompany the returning people to their villages, to repair water and prepare the roads," he said. "They said to me, 'God willing, we will come.' And they didn't come."

The intent here is not to argue that the government should be responsible for medical care, housing or damage control. Libertarians don't think that the government should do any of those things. Even when governments claim that they are the rightful parents of the oppressed masses, they do little or nothing to eliminate these problems since by actually solving such problems, they would put themselves out of "business."

For Bush and Olmert (and their underlings), the only concern is to avoid a public relations problem. They need to publicly excoriate Hezbollah and question its legitimacy. Unfortunately for the US and Israeli governments, Hezbollah is making this virtually impossible.

Even as government officials complain that they are expected to clear shattered towns with nothing but shovels and a few bulldozers, Hezbollah already owns or is in the process of renting the required machinery.

Most important, Hezbollah can draw on the manpower needed to begin the massive reconstruction.

Those factors present a serious challenge to the central government in Beirut and the Bush administration, which is scrambling to launch its own rebuilding effort and deny Hezbollah a public relations dividend.

The US

Those who live in New Orleans and Missippi are intimate with government's ineffectiveness and government's tendency to make excuses. A year ago, Michael Chertoff was plopped in front of reporters to defend FEMA's response to the crisis:

"That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight," Chertoff said.

He called the disaster "breathtaking in its surprise."

But engineers say the levees preventing this below-sea-level city from being turned into a swamp were built to withstand only Category 3 hurricanes. And officials have warned for years that a Category 4 could cause the levees to fail.

Similarly to what is occurring in Lebanon, the US government had one goal in the aftermath of Katrina, and that was to hinder local efforts to rescue and rebuild. The casual observer, if basing his opinion of events on main stream press accounts, would simply think that FEMA officials were inept. The reality is that they were protecting their jobs. FEMA routinely shut down all private and foreign rescue and relief efforts under color of law, cutting off local emergency phone lines and misleading local officials.

If this doesn't convince the statists that formal government is a farce, then what the statist needs to do is show us where it has worked rather than demand proof that an absence of "government", or individuals governing themselves, have ever been effective at fending off life's catastrophes.

Recent events expose the statist's ideas as intellectually, morally and logically bankrupt. It's time the notion of democracy, republicanism, communism, nationalism and all other nannyisms be de-legitimized since none have done anything to improve the human condition. It is only the individuals and private organizations they have created which have been able to do this, the State isn't interested.

In his office in Tyre, Husseini, the regional government official, begrudgingly credited Hezbollah and its Shiite allies in the Amal militia.

"At least they are on the ground helping," he said. "If you call them at midnight, they come out to help. They are the government."

Exactly.

Do the warmongers support these troops?

This article is proof in my mind that we don't need television or newspapers anymore. It discusses the growing resistence to Iraq deployment by US troops. They're speaking out and refusing to go.They defend liberty thus. Those who follow orders favor no one. The US has enough enemies to last a lifetime.

"It takes real courage to resist the war," says Cloy Richards, a former artillery cannoneer for the Marines. "I was afraid to not go; afraid to say no. I took the easy way out and went to the war. It takes way more bravery to say no."

Corporal Richards did two tours of duty in Iraq, between March and October of 2003, and again between March and October of 2004. Like so many in the military, his initial support for the invasion began to disintegrate as the occupation lengthened and became more brutal.

"I was in the artillery unit. I saw a lot of civilian casualties," says Richards, who has seven nephews and one niece. "I love kids," he says. And his views of the Iraq war began to change as he saw Iraqi children die. He particularly remembers watching some kids play with unexploded ammunition. When it exploded, several of them were killed and several more were disfigured. "It was kind of like everything else over there. I just shoved it to the back of my mind somewhere and forgot about it." Except that Richards couldn't actually forget.

Somehow I don't think the Republicans are supportive of men who question their wisdom.

Bloggers Against Torture

Bloggers Against Torture Interesting site.

Enterpreneurs - Not Terrorists

What a nice experience for the three "terrorists" I mentioned in my last post. Arrested and charged with money laundering, terrorism and buying "too many" cell phones. Exhonorated. No kidding?

"I hope this unfortunate turn of events will open some eyes and shed some light on the paranoia and xenophobia that is gripping the country," Abulhassan told reporters at a news conference.

"These are serious issues and they need to be addressed. We can no longer turn and look the other way. There needs to be accountability."

The men returned home Tuesday following a week in jail after prosecutors in southeast Ohio dropped the terror charges, saying they could not prove a terrorism link. The 20-year-olds from Dearborn say they were targeted because they are Arab-Americans.

Law enforcement officials in Ohio deny that claim.

Don't count on anyone actually paying for this screwup.

They Hate Our Freedoms

In light of the latest "terror scare" we are learning that Bush was telling us the truth when he said that the terrorists "hate our freedoms"

Director of Homeland Terrorism, and neocon apologist Michael Chertoff, has been out stumping for increased police-state powers this weekend.

Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, stopped short of calling for immediate changes, noting there might be constitutional barriers to the type of wide police powers the British had in apprehending suspects in the plot to blow up airliners headed to the U.S.

But Chertoff made clear his belief that wider authority could thwart future attacks at a time when Congress is reviewing the proper scope of the Bush administration's executive powers for its warrantless eavesdropping program and military tribunals for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Isn't that lovely. The Constitution apparently, even in its currently abused state, is getting in the way of the terrorists. And how can you not consider them terrorists? They have a political agenda and use every means at their disposal to terrorize the public into giving them nore power.

The Department of Defense defines terrorism thusly: "the unlawful use of -- or threatened use of -- force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives."

Notice that the threat of force or even use of force doesn't have to be unlawful under their definition. Governments, the organizations which control most of the world's "lawful force" are terrorists if they threaten the use of force or use force to acheive political objectives.

"But..but but...", the statists stammer, "the government is only threatening the `real terrorists`." Actually, they are threatening everyone. I mean, unless you believe that the government has technology which can automatically switch off when surveilling a "non" terrorist, then you are a potential target for such surveilance. Today's "suggestion" by Chertoff, who is presumably speaking the will of more government agents and agencies than himself, totally ignores the surveillance of people travelling and working in the US already. If it hasn't worked so far, why will more improve matters?

This in spite of the fact that the Federal government is only authorized to gather minimal census data once every ten years. I haven't seen anyone challenge the government's massive data collection on citizens based on that constitutional restriction before, but I'd sure like to see it done. It is clear to me that data collection such as video, SSN, and private financial records is a direct violation of this restriction on the collection of personal information.

But why limit the definition of terrorism to the use of force alone? The government's ability to manipulate the major news networks is a almost as powerful as the use of force. The use of propaganda designed to instill terror in the minds of citizens here and abroad doesn't count?

The news media is all too willing to play along. After all, they assert, "bad news sells. "If it bleeds, it leads."

In reality, when you take an objective look at the government-approved media, the bulk of its content, including what constitutes "entertainment" is chock full of propaganda meant to terrorize the populice so that they rush out and buy certain products. It works so well with a variety of products, but some still haven't realized that the news itself is designed to yield the same results.

The people running the show want us to be afraid. A sad example of this coincidentally happened this weekend. Three men in Texas were arrested for excercising enterprenurial spirit, (and subsequently charged with money laundering and conspiracy to commit terroristic acts) something that has been long-touted as an admirable trait, and distinctly American. The problem for these naturlized citizens was their "scary" names.

The three men were described as being of Pakistani descent but live in Texas. Police say the three, ages 19, 22, and 23 appear to be naturalized citizens. One man was driving while the other two were in the back opening the phone packages with box cutters throwing the phones in one box, batteries in another and the packaging and phone charger in another container. The suspects had 1000 other cell phones in the van. There was also a bag of receipts showing that someone was in Wisconsin the day before.

The phones were Nokia Tracfones selling for $20 at Wal-Mart. For your twenty dollars you receive a phone charger and 40 minutes of airtime. The phones do not have to be registered with a name. Also discovered was a laptop with store addresses and store logos.

The men have been "cooperative, upfront, not hiding" anything according to police. They also told officers they get stopped frequently and say they buy the phones for $20 and sell them elsewhere for $38. They sell them without the packaging or charger.

The US is just doing the same thing governments all over the world have done for centuries. This is why it is so disheaertening to see history consistently repeat itself. Sitting Bull was a terrifying name at one time. So terrifying that Sherman's cavalry did what it could to wipe out any Indian it could find, man woman and child. Some of the propaganda produced at that time still persists to this day.

Here we go again. We'll still hear the statists like David Horowitz and Michelle Malkin ratcheting up the terror while maintaining an apologetic government stance. The closer the pundit lives to DC, the more piss-soaked their perfuntory analysis, passed off as political insight, becomes.

The terrorists are in DC, not in Dearborne or Iraq. They hate our freedoms, and so do their sycophants in the media.

Who Knew and When?

Remember when the Bush administration denied that the US government had no idea that attacks of the specificity of 9.11.2001 could have been possible? The Administration trotted out every neocon official and pundit they could find to deny, deny deny.

David Horrowitz on 5.17.2002 went to bat for the President as he is often wont to do:

If, on the other hand, Bush had known what the Clinton administration knew -- that al-Qaida had plans to use commercial airliners as bombs and fly them into buildings, specifically the CIA headquarters -- this would be a serious charge. But they did not know it, because the Clinton team never told them. (The fact that Bush didn't know about plans to hijack planes and run them into tall buildings was confirmed by Condoleezza Rice at her Thursday press conference.)

Shortly after 9.11, when every reporter on the east coast was vying for a pulitzer prize in journalism, David Maraniss, of the Washington Post wote a piece tying together the lives of a few involved in the tragedy. Not only should this article prove that Bush lied, it contains a very interesting coincidence that has been rarely noticed.

At Dulles Airport, Capt. Charles Burlingame, who had been a Navy F-4 pilot and once worked on anti-terrorism strategies in the Pentagon, was steering his 757, American Airlines Flight 77, down the runway for the long flight to Los Angeles. Plenty of empty seats in his cabin, like several other cross-country trips at that hour.

...

Matt Rosenberg was down on Corridor 8, a medic at the health clinic in the massive military headquarters, grateful for an uninterrupted hour in which he could study a new medical emergency disaster plan based on the unlikely scenario of an airplane crashing into the place.

[emphasis added] Washington Post 9/16/2001

Burlingame's plane, if indeed it crashed into the Pentagon, crashed into the area where he would have worked. As a reservist, he wrote plans for the Navy War College and the Pentagon on counter-terrorism. It is likely that he authored the plan that Mr. Rosenberg was studying.

But you know, even if Bush didn't know about this plan (which is highly suspect) top government officials did know. And if it was "unlikely" that a plane could crash into the Pentagon, why would the government spend the time and energy planning for the possibility?

Hezbollah captured the Soldiers inside Lebanon

This fact seems to have been ignored by most of the media. It is awfully inconvenient to those who claim that Hezbollah started this.

The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel, which sent ground forces into its neighbor to look for them. The forces were trying to keep the soldiers' captors from moving them deeper into Lebanon, Israeli government officials said on condition of anonymity.

So, Israel had sent soldiers into Lebanon and now must bomb Beirut until it is a pile of rubble. Perhaps it is so nobody will be left to complain that it was Israel itself which started this mess.

Video from Lebanon

Static Brain has posted a chilling video from Lebanon. No worries, you won't see graphic depictions of deaths. But it is worth watching. One day, if the neocons in and around the White House have their way, it could be coming to a city near you. Somebody please vote these sociopaths out of office and replace them with people who actually care about the stated principles of this nation.

By the way, does anyone else find Israel's claim (parroted today by the drug-addled Rush Limbaugh) that the Beirut airport is a valid military target, to be utterly psychotic?

Ron Paul Tells the Truth

Ron Paul, one of the only, if not the only Congressman in America who tells the truth said this on the house floor yesterday (Click on item 53 and then Page: H5453):

Between 1997 and 2004, and that doesn't even count the last 2 years, we gave over $7 billion in weapons grants. It wasn't a loan. It was a weapons grant.

Now, the neat thing about this, this was an economic deal because it was beneficial because under the foreign military financing program that we have, Israel is required to spend 74 percent of that back here. So you are talking about a military-industrial complex, a pretty good deal. You know, we subsidize them, send the money over here, it comes over here, and our arms manufacturers make even more money and then dig a bigger hole for us in foreign policy and contribute to the many problems that we have. And that amount of money, they get $2.3 billion of these military grants, and they automatically increase it $60 million per year. So it is locked in place.

Now, you say, well, that is money for our ally. And fine, if it was used for defense, maybe. But if it is used to antagonize 1 billion Muslims and there is no willingness to even consider the fact that we should look at it in a balanced way, and instead it is ridiculed and said, oh, this is ridiculous to think of neutrality or balance and think about both sides, and the innocent people dying on both sides should be considered.

So we are moving toward a major crisis, a major crisis financially and a major crisis in our foreign policy. I don't believe we can maintain this.

So even if you totally disagree with our aggressive empire building and policing the world, let me tell you, I am going to win the argument, because we are running out of money. We are in big debt, and we are borrowing it. We borrowed $3 billion a day from countries like China and Japan and Saudi Arabia to finance this horrendous debt. And it won't be, it can't be continued. The dollar will eventually weaken. You are going to have horrendous inflation. Interest rates are going to go up, and it is going to be worse than the stagflation of the 1970s.

There's the reason things are so messed up in the middle east.

I am glad I turned off the TV 12 years ago. I can only imagine the pro-Israel screeds broadcast over every station disguised as news. Invest in gold. You're going to need it.

Revenge, Hubris and World War III begins...

The recent events in the Middle East should remind us just how morally bankrupt is the current administration of the U.S. "republic." In an almost verbatim (canned?) response to reporters during the G8 summit, Bush parrotted his May 2004 speech to AIPAC (one which was interrupted 67 times by applause and chants of "Four more years."):

"As a sovereign nation, Israel has every right to defend itself against terrorist activity,"

Daniel Ayalon, Israel's Ambassador to the US apparently thinks that barbequeing innocent civilians is the means to "show restraint."

"If we do not want to see further escalation, deterioration, violence, this is the time to stop Hizbollah and what we are doing is the most effective (way) to stop them."

Gee, Danny, do you actually think that bombing apartment buildings and fleeing civilians is a means to stop Hezbollah? The Washington Post confirms that the US administration and Israel share the same interests when it comes to current events:

For Israel, the goal is to eliminate Hezbollah as a security threat -- or altogether, the sources said. A senior Israeli official confirmed that Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah is a target, on the calculation that the Shiite movement would be far less dynamic without him.

For the United States, the broader goal is to strangle the axis of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran, which the Bush administration believes is pooling resources to change the strategic playing field in the Middle East, U.S. officials say.

As somebody who is old enough to remember, this all looks like revenge. Israel was by most accounts, whooped by Hezbollah which gained a reputation amongst those who have noticed facts rather than Israeli propaganda, of targetting the military rather than civilians.

The US still hasn't gotten over Iran's rebuff and the debacle that was the Iran hostage crisis. Contrary to popular opinion, Carter actually did not appease "terrorists" in 1979. He refused to negotiate which is why the hostages were taken. When Carter let the Shah of Iran enter the US and refused to extradite him to Iran to be charged for crimes the Iranians believed he had committed against the people, violence erupted.

The entire affair was a foreign policy disaster going back to 1953's Operation Ajax in which the CIA influenced Iranian elections.

Iran is still much maligned and there is plenty of leftover resentment to support their acts of revenge. The truly sad part about all of this is that the US administration, which takes grandiose claims about its striving to acheive freedom and democracy the world over, won't even comment on Israel's targetting of civilians.

It's deja vu all over again. During the Iranian hostage crisis, the US under Carter was ramping up to supply Mujahadeen fighters to battle the Soviet infadels who had invaded Afghanistan. Even to the point of ( in collusion with the ISI Pakistan's intelligence agency) schools which taught young boys the importance of Jihad so they could be recruited into the war later.

It was announced yesterday that the US has blocked Russia from entering the WTO. Putin is not amused. He has even taken to stating publically that Iran has the right to defend itself using Bush's own rhetoric in a sardonic twist.

WWIII Anyone?

Home of the Free

I just got a frantic call from a friend.

She and her husband are buying property and have a large sum of cash that they've saved over the years for just such an event.

The problem is that nobody will take the cash as payment. They might be terrorists. They might be tax cheats. They might not have done anything at all exept to do what millions of Americans have done in the past and hoard away federal reserve notes in a closet somewhere.

But today, they risk the upturned noses of nosy bank personnel, IRS audits and worse for merely using the money they've saved over the years to purchase a piece of property on the river.

The powers that be, want you and I to insure that our financial situation be one of living paycheck to paycheck. Getting out of the rat-race by buying a piece of property that might sustain us without having to work for somebody else or start a highly regulated business, is potentially criminal. So don't do it. Never defy the slave-masters or your money will be confiscated. After all, we don't know where you got that money. Nobody saves money of any substantial amount without plotting criminal activity.

My friend is now considering driving around to over 30 different locations to obtain money orders under the legal limit. Thanks to the patriot act and other banking laws, she can't rightfully spend more than 1000 "dollars" without intense scrutiny.

I sure am glad the terrorists aren't winning. What would it be like for a country targetted  by "freedom haters" if its citizens were actually free?

Suicide is now an "act of war."

The Bush administration and the military is desparately trying to contol the damage they have caused to their own credibility with the execution of this so called war on terror. I never cease to be amazed at the hyperbole and outright lies they tell in these attempts. Three detainees at Guantanamo killed themselves Saturday morning and the camp commander, who previously exclaimed he woultn't let this happen, is now alleging that the suicides were "acts of war".

No, they weren't killing themselves out of despair for being held in a foreign country and without charges or hope of release. They were trying to make the U.S. look bad and gain sympathy amongst the world's terrorist population. Hey, if the only people who sympathize with the plight of the Guantanamo detainees are "terrorists", we have a serious lack of morality amongst the world's non-terrorist population.

Why shouldn't we feel sorry for them? And why won't  Rear Admiral Harry Harris show his real mettle and retaliate by blowing his own head off? This is war after all.

We can all feel a little better though since George "hand up my back" Bush has "expressed serious concern" over the deaths. And you know he's serious about human rights. He is the same man who it is reported called the constitution "just a God-damned piece of paper."

Just 340 days ago Bush was defending Guantanamo:

These people are being treated humanely. There are very few prison systems around the world that have seen such scrutiny as this one..

GW Bush, Wednesday, July 6, 2005

Saturday Bush had this to say:

And I appreciate the fact that the Prime Minister is concerned about the decisions that I made on -- toward Guantanamo. I assured him that we would like to end the Guantanamo. We'd like it to be empty. And we're now in the process of working with countries to repatriate people.

GW Bush, Friday, June 9, 2006

It is extremely hard to take anyone in this administration at their word. I'd say that it was hard to take them seriously but meglomaniacs and sociopaths need to be treated very seriously. They could snap at any moment and another batch of innocent people could be thrown into a prison somewhere.

Be safe....



Technorati Tags: demidog, Bush, satan, corruption, guantanamo, terrorism,

HGH is now a problem in baseball?

My God, the new crop of sports writers seem to be sniveling busy bodies, the lot of them. I'd say it was all of America, but in point of fact, Barry Bonds draws more fans to opposing stadiums than any other player in baseball. What the sports writers have deemed crucial to the integrity of baseball does not seem to ring true with the fans.


Barry Bonds has been crucified in the press on the flimsiest of evidence over alleged steroid use, and the shrill voices continue to cry. The latest moron to weigh in on the "performance enhancement issue is Jeff Pasan who writes for Yahoo! Sports. He's now convinced that HGH is a dangerous pharmacuetical that should be banned from baseball based on the testimony of a single pitcher; who's overall record wouldn't be something I'd tout as evidence that HGH or steroids are helpful to one's athletic performance, much less a widespread problem in the major leagues. I mean, who the hell heard of Jason Grimsley before he was deposed by "federal investigators?" He has a career ERA of 4.77 over his 15 year career as a middle relief pitcher.


If anyone actually takes this bonehead seriously, we can expect Congressional hearings on vitamin use and its danger to the "sanctity of the game."

Intelligent Design Spec

I have a friend who is a landscape architect. He's been in this area of Texas for at least 30 years.

The other day we were talking about the scam of pesticides and herbacides. They don't work. Pestacides are especially notorious for losing efficacy over time due to insect adaptation. Plus they are bad for humans. Yeah, I want to eat that tomato covered in 24D. Hand it over.

There are some folks who scoff at the notion that something other than random chance created the universe. I don't know why exactly this idea elicits so many negative reactions but the latest incarnation of creation science is "Intelligent Design" and I think it gets a pretty bad rap generally speaking.

My landscaper friend was explaining how the fire ants (brought to this part of the continent by "intelligent" humans) used to be susceptible to pesticide use. Now they are not. And they did so over the past 2 decades without developing resistence to Amdro. Amdro is a bait. The ants take the food to their queen, feed her poison and she dies.

Fire ants  typically care for  a single queen. If that queen dies, so dies the colony. The fireants here in Texas, to mitigate the effects of Amdro, have taken to caring for 2 and 3 queens. When a neighboring colony's queen dies, one of the queens is shared with the other.

This level of cooperation is unprecedented amongst the fire ant population. Man, being the highest intelligence in the universe, in its attempt to clean up a mess he made, has made the mess worse. One can find example after example of this sort of environmental disaster occurring through man's meddling.

Either man isn't nearly as intelligent as he believes, or most everything in the universe is more intelligent.

Pentagon People

The "plane" that hit the pentagon is curious. A security cam turns up ~5 years after the event and has a new streak "proving" that it was a 757. The government confiscated all video that may have captured the crash from surrounding businesses shortly after the crash. How convenient. Few parts, no black boxes but every single passenger and terrorist accounted for via autopsy well....sort of. We're supposed to believe that the people inside the plane and the pentagon were more resilient than the plane itself. .....right....

Coulter the drag queen?

At the risk of giving this bolemic hag more publicity, Strap on Veterans For Truth have an expose on Ann Coulter's previous manhood.

Technorati Tags: demidog, coulter, transvestite, GOP, bolemia, disorder, humor

America: From Freedom To Fascism

CBS rates Aaron Russo's new movie 4 stars.

"FOUR STARS (Highest Rating). The scariest
goddamn film you'll see this year. It will leave you staggering out of the
theatre, slack-jawed and trembling. Makes 'Fahrenheit 9/11' look like 'Bambi.'
After watching this movie, your comfy, secure notions about America -- and about
what it means to be an American -- will be forever shattered. Producer/director
Aaron Russo and the folks at Cinema Libre Studio deserve to be heralded as
heroes of a post-modern New American Revolution. This is shocking stuff. You'll
be angry, you'll be disgusted, but you may actually break out in a cold sweat
and feel a sickness deep in your gut; I would advise movie theatre managers to
hand out vomit bags. You may end up needing one."

--- Todd David
Schwartz, CBS
demidog

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Fanbelt

"Oh no..." was the second noise I heard. The first was a sort of "ThaWHUMP!" that eminated from within the engine compartment of my 1996 Silverado, the second eminating from somewhere between my ears.

The engine continued to run. My intuition told me that something was wrong. See, my wife had run an errand that morning and had been kind enough to stop in at the Quick Lube to arrange an oil change. The uneasy feeling I had was festering. Did they leave a tool in the engine compartment? They had left a pair of wiper blades, still in the package, on the passenger side cowl; noticed only by my wife after one of them flew off the car and onto the road. It was pretty obvious to me now that these fellows were not the sharpest mechanics in their trade school.

I turned the ignition key and waited for silence. Once again, I started the engine. "Sounds normal. Nothing wrong." My Seven-year-old daughter, who is in the extended cab with her sister, 3, asks me what is wrong. "I heard a noise. It doesn't seem to be serious."

But why was I still uncomfortable? Again, I shut down the beast and popped the hood. I was looking for a shop rag, tool, oil filter....anything that some dumbass may have left in the engine compartment. Facing the grill, I clutched the latch under the now-ajar bonnet and pushed it upward. The sunlight flooded into the engine compartment and illuminated the myriad of wires, computers and body parts, most of them black and covered in a thin film of oily dust. Nothing obvious. No streaks of oil. No smoke. No fire. Just the ticking sound of metal parts cooling.

The fan shroud on this truck is a pretty massive affair and is at about my sternum. If something had fallen, perhaps it was now laying on the front transaxle, or in front of the fan, next to the radiator. It would require that I step up onto the front bumper and crane my neck to see around the fan shroud.

I was hearing words in my head again. "There it is! A .... uh..... Oh crap! It's a kitten.."

Laying on her back, the white underbelly exposed, limbs seeming to splay in directions not at all natural for a graceful feline, was our little calico kitten, barely four months old. I could see her head draped over the sway bar with a few drops of blood coming from her mouth and nose.

I stood there, dumbstruck. Somewhere in the distance, my two girls were happily pretending to be several characters from Star Wars..."Luke, I am your father....; No! Fatherrrrrrrr.......", says the three-year-old.

My wife was opening the gate to the dirt road that leads to civilization from this haven amongst the cows and noticed my approach. The sick look on my face was soon mirrored. "Honey, I need you to see something."

"Do I want to see it?"

"Just come see."

Discreetness is the key in these situations. Mom and Dad need to act naturally so as not to arouse suspicions in the little ones.

"Take a look over the top of that shroud. There's a cat in there."

"Oh no..."

I peered in again from the opposite side of the grill. It got worse. "Wow, she's still breathing." That meant that we wouldn't just be performing a car excorcism. We'd have to put her out of her misery. My first thought was to just slit her throat. She had to be broken inside something awful. Her left hip looked deformed and the leg crossed over the right. Yes, that would be the most humane. Also the safest. Discharging a firearm into the engine compartment wasn't the sanest idea that popped into my head and I immediately shook it off.

My wife, having the clearest head at that moment, suggested we remove the kitten from the engine compartment. Right. Good idea. It wasn't going to be easy. Our little kitten was underneath the fan and the only purchase one might obtain was by pulling her back legs and carefully working her around the fan blades and up over the top of the fan.

That wasn't going to happen. The only way to extricate her was to ease her limp body downward onto the ground below. This too would be tricky since there was a good 18 inches from her resting place and the gravel below. A towel was placed on the ground underneath the truck and my wife accepted the task of catcher. I gently pushed the limp kitten's head and body toward the only gap available and gravity slowly eased her into my wife's awaiting arms.

Now, wrapped in a towel, she seemed, to me, a bit less repulsive. My wife, cradling her like a newborn baby, quickly got into the car and tossed me an expectant look. The creature's impending death was a foregone conclusion but maybe we could make it into town so that the vet could ease her pain.

My oldest daughter was horrified, and once the initial shock worn off, full of questions as we sped onto the country road, gravel spurting from under the rear tires, in search of a veterinarian.

Our search was in vain for an hour or more. The kitten, apparently in an attempt to further increase the nausea and raw nerves of the older family members (the three-year-old was fairly oblivious to the scene), mewed pathetically at the most dramatic moments during the trip. A call to an emergency pager, painted just below the "Closed" sign on the town vet's glass and steel entryway, provided no immediate response.

"Meeeeowwwwwww".

Finally, the annoying ringtone on my Blackberry shattered the silence between mewings. The vet was on his way. He had been inseminating some farmer's cow, needed to wash up and would be in the office shortly. I stared at the kitten's face. Her injuries seemed to become more and more severe. Broken ribs, crushed hips, bleeding organs and a huge lump on her cranium representing a crushed skull, obviously. I never went to college and may have cracked a "Gray's Anatomy" once in biology class, but I was suddenly an expert in feline anatomy. And....."Honey, what's that smell? It's smells like death..."

"Honey!...the kitten pooped in the towel. Just relax."

"Oh God. Of course she's on the brink of death. That's what animals and people do when they are about to die. They shit on themselves. Where is that vet?"

I said this to myself of course. And now it was important to keep the children occupied and distracted. In noble fashion, I extracted the children from their cramped quarters and took them to gawk at sick and recovering livestock through the adjcent barn's windows.

We were teased by a pizza delivery van which stopped at the driveway. The driver apparently needed to organize his personal belongings. Finally, the vet, a down-to-earth looking man in his 50's, pulled up in a belching diesel monstrosity replete with a utility bed and grill guard. A comotion ensued as we impatiently crowded at the front door waiting for the man to find the lock and grant us entry. Our fragile package in hand, we anxiously pushed our way into the lobby.

The three-year-old and I, plopped down onto a comfortable wingback couch a likeness of which one might find in virtually any farmhouse in these parts, while my eldest and her mother consulted with the vet.

I could see from this vantage point the open door of the examining room. The "doc" was sitting on a wheeled office chair and would occassionaly float over the linoleum toward a wall of cabinets containing all sorts of mysterious narcotics and individually packaged medical supplies.

I could only hear snippets of the conversation but almost fell out of the sofa when I heard him say "...it doesn't look like she has any broken bones or serious injuries."

In fact, it was a bit anti-climactic. I was certainly relieved. For a couple of reasons. One, our little kitten was apparently in possession of eight more lives, and two, there wouldn't be a complicated surgery and multi-thousands in fees to pay.

After the kitten was sufficiently anesthetized, we headed home to care for the poor thing. It was Saturday afternoon and all of our weekend plans were out the window. Our weekend would be full of hand-feeings and constant checking and worrying over the patient. She had a laceration (apparently from the fan itself) next to her left eye and running down the bridge of her nose, and on her head a welt the size of a quarter. In fact, her entire head seemed to be swollen. She slept for a long while and that evening, she awoke and fussed a bit in the kennel. My wife tried to give her some water out of an eyedropper but she wasn't that interested. We surmised that it might be necessary to put her on an IV to avoid dehydration - which would mean another trip to the vet. On Sunday afternoon, the kitten ventured out of her portable kennel and tried to play with some string. She then laid down as if to say "Oh, yeah. I'm not quite right, am I"?

In two more days, you wouldn't know by looking at her that anything significant had happened to her.

Consequently, It has become my habit to bang on the fender before I enter any vehicle to wake sleeping cats. I have also renamed our little miracle kitten..

Fanbelt.

demidog